


To the End of the Line

by LenoreFrost



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Bucky Barnes & Winter Soldier are Different Personalities, Bucky Barnes Has PTSD, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Returns, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Bucky is a fantastic kisser, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Hand Jobs, Human Trafficking, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra (Marvel), Identity Issues, M/M, Making Out, Memory Loss, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Multi, Multiple Personalities, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha Romanov Has PTSD, Oral Sex, Past Brainwashing, Past Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Past Mind Control, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Past Torture, Past Violence, Possessive Behavior, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Natasha Romanov, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, Psychological Trauma, Red Room (Marvel), Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Self-Worth Issues, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Smut, Steve Rogers Feels, Stucky - Freeform, Suicide Attempt, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, we all saw that coming, winterwidow - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2020-10-29 12:53:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 18
Words: 109,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20796944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LenoreFrost/pseuds/LenoreFrost
Summary: Since Natasha handed him that file in D.C., since she disappeared from that cemetery, Steve has been looking for Bucky, the Winter Soldier, and also for Natasha.  They both seem to have vanished with only traces that weeks later he's still figuring out how to read, traces of Hydra bases and operatives being destroyed and of human trafficking rings being laid bare and their leaders killed.  He knows that Bucky needs him to help remember and understand his past, to help keep him safe from Hydra.  And he knows that Natasha is now more alone than she's ever been with all her covers blown and everyone she's ever hurt gunning for her.  He wants them back and prays that when he does find them, he'll be able to bring them home.





	1. You May Not Want To Pull On That Thread

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this is a canon divergent work and thus the events of Age of Ultron and Civil War will be heavily affected. Infinity War isn't going to happen period because I refuse to acknowledge it. I don't know anything that's comic-specific except that Bucky and Natasha having a backstory is a thing, so I apologize for that. I am taking requests for comic-based villains to bring into this work. :)  
I wrote this because I think it's kind of silly that it took Steve so long to find a very unstable Bucky and I also think it's frustrating that we don't know what happened to Natasha after all her covers were blown. This will eventually be a romance, but with plenty of action and angst and it will take time to build, since these characters are in a rather fragile state at the start of the work. Constructive and positive comments welcomed and encouraged! Let me know if there's something you want to see happen and I will do my best to make it happen. :)  
Love, Lenore

_Careful, Steve. You might not want to pull on that thread._

For months now, though, Steve had been pulling on that thread. Sometimes he was falling down a rabbit hole of information and wishing she was there to help him break down the door of another Hydra base with him. Sometimes he was hitting a wall and wishing she was there to help him break through that with her mind that saw things no one else did.

He hadn’t expected to, but he found that he missed Natasha as much as he missed Bucky. He wanted them, needed them by his side. Needed their support, their friendship. Needed to know they were safe, needed to give them happiness and healing that they both deserved.

He saw for the millionth time in his mind’s eye Bucky falling from that train, screaming and reaching for him.

He saw for the hundredth time Natasha covered in bruises and soot, unconscious in his arms after nearly being buried in rubble.

And he didn’t have a clue where either of them was or how to reach them.

He and Sam had set up a base of operations at Avengers Tower thanks to Tony’s hospitality. The Tower was ostentatious, but there were important resources there they could take advantage of and Steve knew that if Bucky or Natasha wanted to reach him, this would be the obvious starting point. Not that either of them would have difficulty finding _him._ That was their specialty…tracking people. He could disappear into a jungle somewhere trying to hide and about the time he got hopelessly lost, one of them could drop out of a damn tree with a map to guide him back to civilization.

It had not been long since he’d realized that he could trust Natasha, that she would give her life for him. He’d known since he first met her that she’d kill for him…that was something small to ask of her of all people. But die for him? He thought of how close they’d gotten in the last few years as they ran SHIELD missions together and especially with everything that happened with the Winter Soldier, Fury, and Project Insight. Natasha had been there for him when no one else was without him realizing it. Maybe that was why she’d been there…she’d known he had no one now that he was in this new time and she’d known what it was like to have no one.

He knew very little about Natasha, even after years of working with her. He knew he trusted her and she’d trusted him longer, but her history? Her personal life? They hardly existed for him, only snippets he’d heard from others and foggy imaginings. He knew she’d been trained by the Red Room, which was apparently a Soviet assassin school of some kind. He knew she’d worked for the KGB, left, and then worked as an ‘independent contractor’ until Clint caught up to her and invited her to join SHIELD rather than die at arrowpoint. Someday, Steve wanted to get up the courage to ask one of them about that story. He knew Natasha and Clint were very close, maybe even romantic, and knew they had similar skillsets, but he still couldn’t imagine anybody getting close enough to Natasha to genuinely threaten her life, particularly with a bow and arrow. Surprising her with some kind of bomb or poison? Unlikely, but not completely impossible. Pinning her down at arrowpoint? Yeah, no. He didn’t see it.

What he did know, though, was that Natasha was a very unique person who had been through unique circumstances to make her who she was. He’d thought her cold the first year or so that he knew her, and only slowly he realized that it wasn’t coldness at all but compartmentalization. She was an expert at boxing up her thoughts and feelings and packing them away where no one could see them and hurt her with them, where she wouldn’t be distracted by them or wallow with them. She had a razor-sharp mind and equally sharp wit that emerged in a dark, teasing humor that she regularly used to make him blush. She was tiny enough for him to snap in two, but he’d never get the chance, not with the way she moved. They had sparred together a few times and every time she’d knocked him flat. She claimed he was going too easy on her, but really he hadn’t been, at least not intentionally. He just didn’t know how to deal with someone he wasn’t fast enough to punch. She always thought of others first…that had taken him time to realize and when he had, it had been so glaringly obvious. She was always the first to be concerned about civilians, always the first to worry about getting hostages freed, always the first to knock someone out of the way of a stray bullet at risk to herself. 

All of that came from somewhere unique that he didn’t understand. And the woman she’d become, the hero and the loyal friend that she’d become, didn’t deserve the hell she’d been through to become that person.

Just like Bucky didn’t deserve what had been done to him.

He’d seen the look in his eyes as he raised his fist for a final blow, as Steve repeated those words, _I’m with you to the end of the line._ He’d seen the recognition, the terror, the horror at what he’d done and what he’d lost. And as Steve had fallen limp from the helicarrier, he’d seen the look on Bucky’s face, which couldn’t have been all that different from the look Steve wore as he watched him fall from the train.

He needed to find him.

And as soon as he realized Natasha was in the wind, he’d realized he needed to find her too.

They were both incredibly capable people who had learned to work alone, but that didn’t mean they should have to. Bucky was no doubt so lost and alone, so raw with only shards of memories to hang onto and try to piece together. And it was his fault…if Steve had only looked harder for Bucky after the train, maybe he would have gotten to him before Hydra. And Nat was more exposed than she’d ever been in her life, all her secrets laid bare, all her covers ripped away. He didn’t doubt they could both physically survive anyone who came after them, but could they emotionally survive this time alone?

He didn’t know. He didn’t want to know. He wanted to be there.

A phone rang and Steve bolted off the couch to the dining table where he had four phones laid out. One of the many reasons they were based at the Tower was so they had Tony to handle the technology stuff. It had always been Nat who handled his burner phones, but she wasn’t there to do it now. The phone that was ringing was the number he’d given Clint. “Clint,” he said eagerly. “You got my message.”

“I’m impressed. Did Nat tell you how to find me?”

Steve chuckled once bitterly. “If she had, I would have gotten a hold of you a month ago. How are you?”

“No one’s tried to put my brain in a blender lately, so I’m great,” Clint said drily. Clint had been semi-retired since Loki of his own volition and Steve hadn’t worked with him since then, though they’d exchanged polite conversation at a party of Tony’s Natasha had dragged them to. “Have you found Natasha? Or Barnes?”

“Not yet. Sam’s helping me, and Tony, but you know Tony. He’s wearing too many hats as it is. Every week or so, I catch a lead with Bucky, an active Hydra base with information or a dismantled Hydra base on the news. He’s destroying them as he remembers them, I think. Nat…Nat I can’t even get that.”

“She hasn’t made contact with me and she would’ve abandoned all the safehouses and covers I know about.”

“But she has other contacts that she would have reached out to, that would help her, right?”

Clint sighed. “Natasha has plenty of contacts, but they’re not the kind that are going to give her a couch to crash on. She would have had weapons, IDs, and cash within two days and would have established a new safehouse right after. She wouldn’t be there anymore, though, if you did find it.”

“You think she’s moving around?”

“Definitely. I bet she’s gone through four safehouses by now. That’s not the way to find her.”

Steve shut his eyes and rubbed his temple with his free hand. “So how do I find her? Can I get a message to her through you? Old spy stuff?”

“She won’t come near me. She’ll have people looking for her that she wouldn’t want near me or you.” That twisted Steve’s gut. It was exactly what he’d been afraid of. “But there is a way to track her if you know her. When’s the last time you saw Nat take a day off?”

Steve’s hand dropped and his eyes opened to look out at Manhattan below. “Never. She’s working independently again.”

“Yep. There are channels that she used years ago to get jobs, contacts she used. She would have gone back to that, or found a new version of that. She might even be doing pro bono work to keep busy and keep moving.”

That sounded like Natasha. She wasn’t attached to money or the things it could buy, but people she could help? They mattered. “What kind of pro bono work does she do?”

“I haven’t worked a mission with her in years. She used to have a thing for human trafficking rings, but that may have changed. You would know that…she told me how much you worked with her at SHIELD.”

That hit Steve right in the chest. He and the work he did with her had meant enough to her that she’d talked to Clint about him. Natasha played things so close to the chest…it meant something that she’d shared that information with someone, even Clint. He thought for a long time about Natasha and what he knew about her. Human trafficking made sense…rescuing people who were helpless. And he didn’t know for sure, but he got the distinct impression that she wasn’t at the Red Room willingly. If she knew what it was to be held against your will, to be made to do things you hated, yeah, human trafficking fit. “That still fits. I’ll start there.”

“Good luck and be careful, Steve. She won’t be easy to bring in and you’re going to go through some nasty shit running in her circles.”

“That’s why I need to find her. So she isn’t running in those circles alone.”

Clint hung up the phone and Steve looked down at it. The screen had the phonecall clocked at a minute fifty, too short to be traced. It was enough to make him smile fondly thinking of Clint and Natasha and their spy tricks. He shattered the phone in one hand for good measure, burning his line to Clint, and picked up a different phone. _I heard from Barton._

_Sam: I’ll be right up. Do I need a go-bag?_

_ Steve: Not yet, but don’t make dinner plans._

\---------------

_What do you want me to be?_

_ How about a friend?_

She could use a friend right now.

_No. Not right now._

The mission came first. It came before her thoughts, her feelings, her needs. There were lives on the line that she needed to save.

The door in the dark corner of the room opened and the guards moved aside to admit a string of eight people in expensive suits carrying drinks. An Asian man with long black hair holding a martini. A pair of Arab men in crisp black suits with water. An Eastern European with a hard jawline and a vodka gripped in his hand. A blonde with a glass of wine as red as her lips and suit. A large black man with golden tattoos running from his temples around his head. An American with blond hair, piercing grey eyes, and what looked like a bourbon. And a woman with silver-streaked hair and a sleek black suit lifting a martini to her lips. They all took seats in the armchairs spaced around the dim room with its expensive wood paneled walls and candlelit chandelier, Old World holdovers. 

Their eyes raked over her and her cells rippled with disgust and violation as she stood there, her shoulders nearly dislocated from hanging by her raw wrists in their shackles, her toes aching from standing up on them the way she danced when she didn’t have her pointe shoes. She was a piece of meat, beautiful meat, but meat nonetheless. Three of the males were already sweating, one was salivating, and five of the eight marks were leaned forward slightly in interest. All of their pupils were dilated.

Vankov stepped forward from behind her and ran his fingertips from the side of her breast down to the hem of her dress. She didn’t have to manufacture her shudder. “Thank you all for coming this evening. As always, you are most welcome and I promise you, you will depart tonight thoroughly satisfied.” With no further preamble, they all knew why they were here and had been through this before, Vankov moved to face her and produced a small knife. With a flick of his wrist, he used it to slit the low neckline of her dress, then with both hands, ripped it down the middle, exposing her to the room in nothing but her panties and bra. She shuddered again and forced tears and a squeak of fear to leave her. The blonde took a lingering sip of her wine, her eyes wide with appreciation. Vankov moved to the side once more and began to calmly pace the room, his eyes on her as well, scraping what little clothes she had left away with his mind. “Such a lovely girl and so…exotic. I have been asked to find a girl with hair as lovely as hers, natural of course, and I have found her. We’ll start the bidding at five-hundred thousand.”

There was a pregnant pause, then the blonde lifted a finger.

“Six-hundred thousand,” Vankov said.

The Asian man.

“Seven-hundred thousand.”

The blonde again.

“Eight-hundred thousand.”

The American this time.

The bidding had reached one million and three-hundred thousand with the blonde on top when the room fell quiet. She allowed her body to drift listlessly as it had been since they strung her up from the chandelier, since they’d ‘taken’ her, feigning sensitivity to the drugs they used. Vankov moved towards her once more and ran his finger along the upper line of her bra and down her cleavage, his lips parted, his pulse hammering in his neck. He got off on this. “Such a lovely girl. I’ll be so sorry to part with her.”

The woman with the martini raised her glass and Vankov’s smile widened. “One million four-hundred thousand.”

He slowly turned away, his back to her and three steps ahead.

It was all the opening she needed.

With a silent heft, she lifted herself by her arms and locked her legs around his head, giving one sharp twist to break his neck. Then, with a wrench of her core muscles, she threw his body sideways into the arms of a shocked guard. In a moment, she had flipped upward and wrenched the chain loose from the chandelier, then landed on her feet and lashed out with the chain like a whip, shattering the face of the first guard to raise his gun. The next she shattered the wrist of. By then there were screams of surprise and fear from the buyers, but the room had been sealed for this transaction and she had just broken the third guard’s neck using the chain as a garrote. Shots fired, but she was moving too fast to let them aim properly. She broke the neck of the American, who had fired on her, then caved in the face of the Asian man. The first guard had dropped Vankov and was rushing forward, a mistake he would not live to be able to regret. A roundhouse kick knocked the first Arab into a wall, where his skull cracked, then a twist in the air brought her body around the other Arab’s neck, spinning his head a hundred and eighty degrees around.

The rest failed to fight back and fell one by one.

The silver-haired woman had escaped her once before. She took her time with her, breaking a dozen bones before snapping her neck.

When it was done, she unshackled herself with keys from the guard who had chained her, then she turned out the pockets of everyone in the room, laying bare the phones, the tablets, the hand-written lists. She unlocked each device with its owner’s thumbprints or facial recognition, then quickly found the information she needed and left the tabs open. Banking statements. Ledgers. Contacts. Addresses. She left each device by its owner’s hand.

Vankov’s tablet contained the identities of all his buyers. She sent that document to herself before leaving the tablet unlocked at his hand.

She took the back door out of the room and, still in the rags of her dress, followed the dark stairwell down to where they kept the girls, breaking necks and cracking skulls on her way. There were eighteen of them, all in gaudy dresses like her with eyeliner running from their teary eyes, bruises half-hidden by makeup. They were too weak to stand, too drugged to do more than watch and moan. She unshackled them all, then used one of the guard’s phones to dial emergency services. “There are eighteen women in need of medical assistance here, along with the monsters who would have bought and sold them. Track this signal.”

She laid the phone on the floor as dispatch tried to ask who she was or where she was. She didn’t answer, just walked out.

As she dragged on a different dress and a pair of heels from the traffickers’ stash and exited the club through the front door, her skin crawled. She picked the pocket of a half-drunk Slav near the door and hailed a cab. As she sat in the backseat, speeding away towards a hotel she knew in the city they’d brought her to, tears burned her eyes. But they didn’t fall.

Vankov’s fingers still burned where he’d touched her.

Dozens of places on her body burned where she’d let marks touch her over the years. Bruises on her wrists. Splits in her lip. Teeth marks on her neck. Hickeys on her breasts. Sores where they’d taken her hard enough to make her bleed.

She wished she could have taken her time with Vankov. She wished she could have taken her time with all of the ones she’d had to kill quickly or quietly.

_How about a friend?_

A rattling sigh escaped her and she blinked the tears from her eyes, forcing them back.

The mission came first.

Steve’s lips soft on hers, a soft sigh escaping as they parted instinctively, wanting her despite the situation, despite what she was.

The flashes of memories she sometimes got in her dreams, memories of whispered words in Russian, sighs and gentle touches, soft kisses on her lips, her forehead, her hands, her thighs. Memories the Red Room had stolen from her long ago to punish her. Memories they had scraped all but tiny snatches of away from her brain.

That night, she sank into a scalding hot bathtub and scrubbed away the filth, real and imagined. She lay in the king-sized bed naked, wondering what it would feel like to have someone beside her. A friend. A lover. Someone who gave a damn and would know how to heal all the places she was broken.

The drugs were long gone. The sores on her wrists were already closing. The bruises were fading. But she was just as broken as she’d ever been.

\------------

He’d been running since DC. Since Hydra. Since Steve. Building safehouses, building identities, then tearing them down again weeks later. He’d lied and stolen and killed, but he’d hardly slept.

He couldn’t stop hearing their screams. He could hear the _pop_ of gunfire and the _crunch_ of bone now as he laid on the floor in his latest piece of shit apartment and he couldn’t sleep. The memories were returning slowly, especially since he’d uncovered James Buchanan Barnes at the Smithsonian, but the kills were coming back faster than anything else. That or, proportionately, there were just that many kills that the rest of his memories shrank in comparison.

Or maybe Hydra had scrubbed his brain of all the good memories. Maybe all they had left him was the kills.

Except that that wasn’t true, at least not entirely. He remembered Steve. He _knew_ Steve.

_I’m with you to the end of the line._

Yes, he knew him. Lying there at the bottom of the helicarrier, bleeding and broken from bullet holes _he’d_ put in him, from hits _he’d_ dealt him, his mark had suddenly become a skinny kid getting beaten up in a back alley and not knowing when to back down.

_I could do this all day._

Watching him fall had brought back the train. He’d watched Steve fall from the helicarrier and himself fall from the train in the same moment and it had paralyzed him. He’d gone in after him, had pulled him to shore and made sure he was going to make it. He’d had to. This was _Steve_ and he didn’t entirely know who Steve was, but he knew what Steve meant to him.

_You’re my friend._

He’d walked away. He’d had to. He didn’t know what else to do, didn’t know who he even was. For so long he’d been the Soldier and nothing else.

_Liubimyj_….

That was a new voice in his head joining the chorus. It was enough to send him bolt upright from where he’d been laying on the floor trying to remember what sleep felt like. It was a woman’s voice, a low bedroom rasp that made all the hairs on his arms stand up. A cold sweat broke out on his face and neck and he clutched his head in his hands, as if squeezing it would force out the rest of that memory.

_Liubimyj_. It was Russian for ‘darling.’ He’d been that to someone.

_When?_ How was it possible that there had been someone while he was in Hydra’s chains? While he was disappearing and reappearing, killing over and over?

Maybe it had been a mark.

But it hadn’t been.

_Liubimyj_….

There it was again, that tiny shard of a memory. It was just one word in that singular voice, but he knew it like he’d known Steve. It was real and the emotion in the voice was real too. It was murmured as if to a lover on the heels of an indulgent chuckle. He could almost feel her breath on his face, could almost see her through the darkness…but she wasn’t there.

He clenched his left hand into a fist, the tiny gears whirring beneath the adamantium plates as he put all his strength into it. He was tempted to use it to destroy something…perhaps the table or the nearest wall…but that wouldn’t do. He was tired of destroying things…he’d done enough of that.

More screams. Pleas for mercy. Gunfire. Breaking bones.

A grimace contorted his face and he shuddered as the sounds played inside his head, as the faces played across his eyes. His eyes burned. _I did that. I threatened those people, beat them, tortured them, killed them._

_I’m with you to the end of the line._

Did that include everything he’d done?

He remembered the helicarrier like it was moments ago, remembered Steve’s broken face and his refusal to hurt him, even though he was the Winter Soldier and was doing his damnedest to kill him.

_You’re my friend._

_ You’re my mission._

_ Then finish it. ‘Cause I’m with you to the end of the line._

The end of the line. Where exactly was that? Was that before or after he’d murdered Steve’s friend Howard Stark and his wife? Before or after he tried to kill Steve’s friend Natalia Romanova? Before or after he’d been a part of trying to make Project Insight successful? Before or after he’d let Steve fall from the helicarrier? Before or after he’d disappeared?

_James…liubimyj…it’s not you. They’re controlling you. You can’t bear all of this guilt._

“Fuck,” he groaned, tearing at his hair, hair he knew she’d run her fingers through. She was so close he could almost taste her kiss, but she wasn’t there. Hadn’t been there in years, no doubt.

Another thing they’d taken from him.

The rage boiled up inside of him and an image came with it. A fence. A gate. A sign on the wall above.

Steve and the woman drained away and he stood to gather his go-bag and put on his gloves.

He had another Hydra base to destroy.


	2. Lost and Found

Steve was standing outside the club peering past the crime scene tape when Sam rejoined him, tucking his phone into his pocket. “That was Tony,” he said.

“Did he find her?”

“Still running facial recognition. But the ruins of a Hydra base are currently smoldering just over the Bulgarian border.”

Steve looked at him sharply, his heart rate doubling. “They were within a hundred miles of each other within the last twenty-four hours?”

Sam nodded, his eyebrows raised. “Do you believe in coincidences?”

“I believe that we’re too close to miss this chance. Have Tony search the city for Bucky.”

“He’s already on it.” Steve looked across the street, watching the black body bags coming out of the club one by one. Sam did the same, his face tightening. “You sure you want to find them, Steve? They’re both on fucking rampages right now.”

_I’m with you to the end of the line._

_ Would you trust me to do the same?_

“That’s why I have to find them. I can’t imagine the hell they’re in that they feel the need to do these things.”

Sam’s phone chirped and he drew it quickly from his pocket as Steve stepped closer to read over his shoulder. “It’s a hotel address,” Sam said. “Tony found her.”

“If she’s still there.”

“This broke the news at three o’clock local time and she took on an awful lot of bad guys. She might still be there patching herself up. Come on.”

\-----------------

_“Natalia…my Natalia …”_

_ Her body writhed under his mouth as his tongue drew a narrow line down her abdomen and between her legs. He laid a kiss there, then hesitated and laid a kiss on the bruise at her inner thigh. She could feel his hand begin to shake on her hip. “I wish I’d been there. I’d have ripped him limb from limb.”_

_ “Liubimyj,” she murmured, cupping his cheek with her hand. “He paid for it. I told you he did.”_

_ “He should have paid for it ten times over. Let me take care of you, my Natalia.”_

_ “Please…oh…yes…”_

She awoke with her heart racing and a warm throbbing between her legs. She shut her eyes tight and tried to remember the feel of his mouth on her skin, his tongue inside her, but the memory was fading along with sleep.

Natasha slid out of bed and dressed in her clothes from the night before. She’d worn her bra and panties for the three days straight that she’d been detained by the traffickers, so she abandoned them in the trash and went without. She’d replace them and get new clothes first thing, before coffee. She hated this damn dress and everything it stood for.

The elevator opened on the lobby and she took in the room in a moment as she stepped out. She had slept late and the lobby was busy with other check-outs and breakfast seekers. Her eyes absorbed every face, clocked every exit, catalogued every bulge beneath clothing that might be a weapon. She honed in on the big man arguing with the woman behind the front desk, clocked him as a potential threat, then froze mid-step. As she did, the dark-skinned man beside him turned and his eyes bulged upon seeing her. It was Sam Wilson. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he said, grabbing Steve’s arm. Then blue eyes were locked on hers and he was rushing across the lobby to her.

She hated that he’d found her, hated how sloppy she must have been that he did, hated that he was seeing her like this, looking like a tramp, bruised and drawn out from the last few days. But God was she glad to see him. Neither of them said a word as he wrapped his arms around her and crushed her to his chest like he thought she’d disappear. After a shocked moment, she squeezed her eyes shut and gripped his shoulders, holding him to her. Her knees nearly buckled, that’s how badly she needed that hug.

“Nat,” Steve breathed, his voice low and shaky. “I’ve been looking for you every day since you left. I can’t believe I let you disappear like that. God, I’m glad to see you.” He released her then except for his hands gripping her upper arms and took stock of her, his jaw tightening like iron as he took in her attire, the bruises on her wrists and ankles from being bound, the ones on her legs and arms from fighting. “Jesus, Nat.” He pulled her in for another hug, this one much gentler, as if he was afraid she might have broken ribs. “What did they do to you?”

“It’s not really hotel lobby conversation,” she said quietly.

“Right. Sam, go find her some clothes and shoes, something practical. I’ll text you the room number.”

“You got it, Cap.”

She buried her face in Steve’s firm shoulder as Sam disappeared, apparently to find the nearest clothing store, and dug her fingers into his back, breathing in the scent of his soap and leather jacket. “You have no idea how glad I am to see you,” she whispered.

Steve sighed and kissed the top of her head. “I wish you’d let me find you sooner. Let’s go upstairs.”

She led him up to the room she had not yet checked out of, him holding her hand the whole way like he thought she’d try to run from him. He must have really been worried the last few months. In the room, Steve bolted the door, sat her down on the end of the bed, and texted Sam before he joined her, laying a hand on hers. His eyes were darting over her injuries and she knew he was also taking in the tiny, ill-fitting dress and the fact that she obviously wasn’t wearing a bra. His eyes weren’t undressing her, though, she knew what that felt like. No, he was worrying over her. Finally, his blue eyes flicked upward to meet hers, his brow deeply lined with concern as he said, “Tell me.”

Natasha breathed a deep sigh, then said, “I’ve been following a web of traffickers. The latest trafficker was called Vankov. I tracked him and got myself taken by his group so I’d be brought in. I was with them for three days before the girls I was with and I were taken to auction. I wanted the buyers. They were bidding when I got my opening. I took them out, left the information for the police and the girls for medical attention. Sent Vankov’s list of buyers to myself to chase some more threads of the web.”

“You’re not going after more of them,” Steve said firmly, “Not without backup.”

“I handled it, Steve.”

“Yeah? You let them handle you,” he said, his voice cracking as he gently rubbed his thumb across the bruising on her wrist. “What happened in those three days? Did they drug you? Beat you?” He took his hand off her wrist abruptly, but tightened the one on her hand as his eyes snapped up to hers, blazing blue. “Did they lay hands on you?”

She shut her eyes tight and shook her head. “I was drugged, but that shit doesn’t affect me much…I stayed lucid. I didn’t make trouble, so they didn’t beat me except when they first took me and had to subdue me. During the bidding…Vankov stripped me to my bra and panties. Ran his hands over me. That was it, though.”

“God, Nat…I don’t like killing people, but him I want dead.”

“It’s your lucky day,” she said, opening her eyes to meet his gaze again. “I broke his neck…he was the first I took down.” _Besides, I’ve had worse._

Steve exhaled, then bent to kiss the top of her hand. The gesture was so sweet it nearly brought tears to her eyes, especially since she’d just told him that she’d used those hands to help her snap a man’s neck. Gently, Steve wrapped an arm around her and reeled her in so she was leaning into him. She accepted the contact and even leaned her head on his chest. This was Steve, sweet, loyal, safe Steve. She trusted him. And he was here for her.

Sam brought her jeans, a sweater, running shoes, a sports bra, and panties, all of which were surprisingly close to her size. He also brought takeout Chinese that they sat on the floor eating after she’d changed.

“You know, he’s been driving me nuts worrying about you,” Sam said to her. “Between you and Barnes, I swear he’s hardly slept.”

Her eyes snapped to Steve, who was glaring at Sam. “You haven’t found him, then?”

“Not yet,” Steve said stiffly. “But we’re close. He’s hunting down and destroying Hydra bases. He just burned one over the Bulgarian border last night, so we’re hoping he’s still in the area. Tony and Jarvis are looking for him with facial recognition.”

“Good. He’ll have taken the train from Ruse to Sofia.”

Steve and Sam blinked at each other. “How do you know?”

“There’s a train out of Ruse at the border that you can take to Sofia and beyond all over Europe. It’s the fastest way west out of Bulgaria besides by plane and he’s not going to go towards Russia.”

Steve nodded. “That makes sense. Do you think we can get ahead of the train?”

Natasha smirked. “Depends. Do you have a quinjet?”

\-------------

He hated traveling unarmed. Hated all the people around him, all the threats, the minimal exits, the fact that he didn’t have the security blanket a sidearm or a knife offered him. Fortunately for him, the Winter Soldier was still faceless, so looking a security guard at the train station in the eye and explaining that he had a prosthetic arm raised only minimal red flags. A weapon, though, that would have been different.

Little did they know that the arm was his primary weapon.

He’d beat down doors with it, smashed skulls with it, driven off bullets with it, broken bones with it, demolished security systems with it. They’d trained him well, and now they were paying for it.

He still remembered every kill, but he soothed himself with reminders that everyone in those Hydra bases was complicit in what Hydra was doing, what they had done. None of them were innocent.

It was easy to remember that when he found the labs that the bases so often had, the ones they had used to wipe him or others, the ones they had used to experiment on human beings that they then dumped into black holes, never to be seen again. That made it easy to blow the bases to kingdom come, leaving nothing behind for his victims’ families. These people had earned nothing more than being identified by their dental records.

He watched out the window as the train raced through the Bulgarian countryside, trying to avoid thinking about all of the people milling around him, far too close for comfort. If they only knew the monster he was…but they didn’t. They were utterly ignorant.

_You’re not a monster, liubimyj._

_ You’re my friend._

He buried his head in his hands as pain began to build behind his right eye. Sometimes the memories brought with them horrible pain as his brain fought to rebuild the synapses Hydra had fried. It reminded him of the chair, made his heart race and his living hand shake, made his breath come quick and shallow. The pain arced up along his skull and he grimaced.

_Smooth hair draping over his shoulder. Eyes shining in the darkness whose color he couldn’t quite place. The curve of her lips as she smiled the secret smile she reserved only for him._

God, he wanted her. Wanted her so bad it made his skin crawl with desperation.

_Carnival music echoing around him. Sickly sweet sugar clinging to his tongue. Laughter on his lips as his arm fell over a set of narrow shoulders, as laughter answered him. Coney Island, that was the name of the place. Blue eyes sparked in a face a full head below his. “Thanks for this, Buck. I needed this.”_

_Buck._ His name. James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky.

And that voice, those blue eyes, those fragile shoulders, they belonged to Steve.

God, he missed him. He missed him badly enough to consider going back to New York, back to Brooklyn, back to Steve, where he might remember things, where he might feel at home again, where he might be safe again.

The brakes creaked as the train slowed into a station. Without any luggage save his go-bag, he was among the first to disembark and pour into the busy train station. It was chaos and it made his skin prickle with discomfort as he kept his head on a swivel, clocking exits, potential threats…Steve.

He stopped stock-still in his tracks, staring at Steve, who stood near the tile wall watching the passengers get off the train. He wore a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball cap and a brown leather jacket, looking very Captain America, and his face was tight with worry as he catalogued every face.

Looking for him?

For a moment, he stood there staring at Steve, wondering what to do, whether to approach him or to flee. Both options were oh so tempting for different reasons. He wanted Steve, wanted his _friend_, wanted his memories. He also wanted to keep his damaged self well away from Steve, well away from hurting either Steve or himself.

He took a step backwards.

“He wants to help you,” a rough female voice said to him. “Let him.”

He turned his head to look over his shoulder. Just behind him and to his left, between his metal arm and the civilians, stood Natalia Romanova, Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow. She was measuring him with cool green eyes and something strange pulled at his mind. Recognition.

But then, he had tried to kill her several times in recent years.

“I’m not worth it,” he finally said.

“You are to him,” she answered. When he hesitated a moment, she nodded to Steve. “He’s been looking for you since D.C. and he’s going to keep looking if you don’t give it a chance.”

His eyes roved back to Steve, whose mouth had gone tight with worry. It was the same look on his face, he realized, as when he had handed Steve a bottle of medicine and Steve asked where he’d gotten the money. _I make good money at the docks,_ he’d say. _Don’t worry about it._

The memories always came back like that, in odd little snippets. Usually right alongside a random man’s face being blown apart by a bullet.

“I don’t know if I can ever be what he’s looking for,” he said at last.

“You know what I’ve done and he counts me as a friend. Don’t underestimate his loyalty.”

He sighed, the words spilling from his mouth automatically. “He always was a loyal punk.”

He stepped forward.

He had almost reached Steve before the other man saw him, his face cracking open in shock. “Buck,” he said. “Do you know me? I’ve been looking for you.”

He swallowed hard, choking on the anxiety that had him pulled as taut as a bowstring. “I know you, or pieces of you anyway. And I’ve been looking for me too.”

Steve nodded stiffly, his forehead creased in sadness. “I’m sorry. If I had found you…after the train…none of this would have happened.”

That shocked him to his core. Steve blamed himself for this? How could he? The words rolled off his tongue before his brain even processed them. “There was nothing you could have done, punk. I should’ve been dead.”

Steve knew the nickname ‘punk’ better than he did and it obviously shook him, bringing tears to his blue eyes. His arms twitched as if he wanted to embrace him but didn’t know if he would allow it. “God, I missed you, Buck. You have no idea.”

He looked down at his boots to avoid those sympathetic eyes. He didn’t deserve that look or those words. “Maybe you missed him…Bucky…but I don’t think I’m that guy anymore. I don’t know if I ever can be.”

Steve clapped a hand on his shoulder, his _left_ shoulder, and he looked up in shock. Steve didn’t flinch one bit at the feel of his metal arm hidden under his jacket. He was accepting him for what he was now. “I told you. I’m with you to the end of the line.”

His eyes burned and his whole body twitched. It took him a moment to realize that he wanted physical comfort, that Steve’s hand on his shoulder meant more than words ever could. He had had nothing but pain from everyone else for so many years, the only bright spots created by that woman he couldn’t remember. He needed this so badly. “I feel so lost. It’s coming back in tiny pieces…all the kills are back and I can’t get them out of my head. It’s like they wanted me to remember those.”

Steve’s jaw hardened like iron and his hand tightened on his shoulder. “I can help you get the good memories back. Let me help you.”

He shut his eyes and swallowed hard, choking on the pain and confusion and self-loathing. “I don’t deserve it.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“It’s not.” He gritted his teeth, then ground out the words, “Steve, I tried to kill you, tried to kill your friends, killed so many innocents. I killed Howard and his wife. I don’t deserve your sympathy.”

Steve flinched at the mention of Howard Stark, but didn’t back away. “That wasn’t you, Buck. They were controlling you.”

“I still did it.”

“Please. Let me help you.”

He met Steve’s earnest gaze and a memory came back of rescuing Steve from getting his ass handed to him in an alley. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”

Steve gave him a tight smile. “I could do this all day.”

He nodded slowly, then took a step forward and embraced Steve with his living arm, resting his head on Steve’s shoulder. Steve gripped him with both arms like he might slip away again and the gesture felt so familiar, so real, so right.

“Let’s go home, Bucky.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe this seems like Steve found them faster than one would have expected, but I think he has more resources than one might expect. And don't think that this chapter suggests this will be a brief story, because these three have plenty to work through.


	3. Homecoming

As they loaded up the quinjet and settled in for the long flight back to New York, Steve noticed Sam watching Bucky out of the corner of his eye and did the same. Bucky was moving stiffly, uncomfortably, like he wanted to crawl out of his skin and disappear. Natasha was watching all of them, her eyes constantly moving, analyzing the situation. She was still standing, analyzing, as Sam took off and, when Bucky sat near the back of the quinjet, well away from him and Sam, she sat across from him and began dismantling the handgun and Widow’s Bites she’d somehow gotten into the train station. Her facial expression was like the smooth surface of a clear lake, but she moved very deliberately. Bucky’s eyebrow went up as he watched her and his eyes took apart her gun bit by bit as she began to clean it. “Like it?” she asked him.

“Nice. I prefer rifles, though.”

Natasha smirked. “I work best up close.” She disarmed one of the Bites and handed it to him. “How about this?”

Bucky turned the Bite over in his human hand and eyed it warily. “How strong is the voltage?”

“Enough to knock most people unconscious. The disks they fire should look familiar.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes and the corner of his mouth quirked. “You used one of these to short-circuit my arm.”

“Didn’t work for long, but it slowed you down.”

Bucky’s face had gone shadowed and he handed the Bite back to her. “Do you wear them all the time?”

“Not all the time. Stark offered to make a more fashionable version for me, though, so maybe then.”

“You should wear them all the time,” Bucky said stiffly. “Especially around me.”

That twisted Steve’s gut to hear, but Natasha just shrugged. “Maybe when we get settled in New York, we can spar. Find out if I even need them.”

Bucky didn’t smile, but he did chuckle. “That sounds interesting.”

“Scared, Barnes?”

“I’d hate to hurt a dame.”

“I wouldn’t stress about it.”

They shared a gaze that Steve couldn’t read, then Bucky reached out to take her mag, unload it, and clean it.

“Your scary Russian assassins seem to be getting along,” Sam said wryly.

“So far.” He turned his back on Bucky and Nat and sat in the co-pilot’s seat. “Nat knows what she’s doing.”

“Yeah, and that’s terrifying.”

Steve smirked. “I think she’s just the right amount of terrifying.”

Sam grinned. “You would.”

“What does that mean?”

Sam raised an eyebrow and, still grinning, gave him a sidelong look. “It’s okay if you have a thing for her, Cap. Hell, every red-blooded male probably has a thing for her.”

Steve narrowed his eyes at him, hoping like hell Natasha and Bucky weren’t overhearing this. “I do not…Natasha is a beautiful woman, but I respect her. I don’t think about her that way and I don’t want to talk about her that way.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay. So, you don’t _lust_ after her like every red-blooded male. You’re just in love with her. Got it.”

“I am not in love with her. Natasha and I are friends.”

“Friends don’t look at friends the way you looked at her in that hotel.”

“And how was I looking at her?”

Sam raised an eyebrow but kept his eyes on the dashboard. “Like she was your girl and someone smacked her around. Would you have freaked out if I showed up with a few bruises? No. You would’ve asked what happened, but you would not have freaked out.”

“I did not freak out.”

“Yeah, my mistake. Treating Natasha Romanoff of all people like a china doll is not freaking out at all.”

Steve opened his mouth to make a retort, but snapped it shut. He hesitated, then looked back over his shoulder to watch as Natasha handed Bucky her sniper rifle and he checked it out. She was going out of her way to make him feel comfortable and safe, to distract him from the bitterness Steve had seen in his eyes. There was still the shadow of a bruise at her cheekbone, but it was fading quickly, as were the rings around her wrists. He admitted to himself that he liked the way her muscular legs and ass looked in the slightly too-small jeans Sam had gotten her, liked the way the light hit her red hair falling over her shoulder in natural waves, liked the way it felt when her green eyes snapped to meet his gaze and she raised an eyebrow at him. He mouthed the words _thank you_ and she nodded, just enough that he could see it. A warmth expanded briefly in his chest and he frowned in confusion at it.

Maybe he did love her a little bit.

On the flight over the Atlantic, Steve kept in communication with Jarvis and, by extension, Tony. They had been optimistically preparing for this since Steve had first started looking for Bucky and Natasha and since Tony had, after very little convincing, agreed to help. Despite having a rocky history, the Battle of New York had moved Natasha back up to almost trustworthy status in Tony’s eyes, which was a pretty serious feat. Certainly, he respected her as an Avenger. It took a little more explanation and convincing to get Tony to support bringing in Bucky, but something Steve had recently realized about Tony was that despite the image he portrayed and sometimes embodied, he was a rather thoughtful person with a lot of red in his ledger, as Natasha would say, that he wanted to take care of. Bringing in someone else with red in their ledger who might want to right all those wrongs, someone who was Steve’s best friend? The idea was enough to earn Tony’s seal of approval.

There had, however, been a slew of conditions for both Natasha and Bucky, which hadn’t surprised Steve in the least, knowing that Tony trusted next to no one.

No one was to know Bucky or Natasha was at Avengers Tower except for Pepper, Jarvis, and the Avengers, which included Sam as an unofficial Avenger since his actions preventing Project Insight earned him a recommendation.

Natasha and Bucky were not to leave Avengers Tower except with Tony’s agreement, which would prevent them from being recognized and their location becoming known.

There were certain floors of Avengers Tower that were locked based upon an individual’s security clearance and Bucky and Natasha had far less access than everyone else. They did not have access to the armory, the quinjet’s landing pad, any of the floors used by Stark Industries, or the first floor. Bucky didn’t have access to the Avengers’ project floors or any living quarters other than his own and Steve’s.

To balance out those conditions, Tony was being, in Steve’s opinion, a reasonably gracious host considering how little he trusted Natasha and Bucky. Natasha had had a floor at Avengers Tower since it became Avengers Tower and Tony had preserved it exactly as she’d left it the last time she’d checked in there. Apparently, she had used it little, but it still housed personal possessions and a dance studio she’d asked Tony to build her. For Bucky, Tony had offered Steve a guest floor along with permission to add whatever touches to it Steve felt might help jog Bucky’s memory and make him more Bucky, less Winter Soldier. In the days when the search had gone cold and Steve had gotten twitchy with needing to do something useful, he’d hung a huge print of the Brooklyn Bridge and hunted down old photos and framed them, mostly photos of them and the rest of the Howling Commandoes from the war, but a few earlier ones he’d tracked down too. The Smithsonian had been kind enough to grant him electronic copies of what they had. The artist’s brain he didn’t use often enough came out as he ordered the photographs printed in various sizes and colorings and placed them carefully on the walls and tables throughout the floor.

Tony had also insisted that Bucky and Natasha’s living expenses were to come out of the Avengers’ account, not Steve’s, though Steve had quite a bit of backpay from the U.S. government thanks to his time in the ice. Steve couldn’t help rolling his eyes remembering the impatient way Tony had waved off his concerns and said, “That’s what it’s there for, Cap. Besides, it’s not like Red eats much anyway and your buddy probably just plugs into the wall to recharge.”

A hand descended to his shoulder and it took everything in him not to jump out of his skin. “How close are we?” Natasha asked.

“Twenty minutes. We’re burning a little extra fuel to get there quicker.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow at him that he pretended to ignore. He didn’t like the idea of Bucky feeling trapped inside the tiny quinjet for any longer than he needed to be. In fact, Nat probably agreed with him and that was why she was asking at all when she knew exactly how long it should take a quinjet to get from Bulgaria to New York. “What kind of welcome should we expect?” she asked drily. “I imagine Stark won’t be too happy to see us.”

“You might be surprised. Your floor is intact and he’s appropriated one for Bucky too.”

“Mmhmm. Am I going to have access to my toys?”

Steve’s jaw tightened. He’d been fearing rehashing this conversation since he’d first had it with Tony. “Well…sort of.”

“Mmhmm. So, I have my floor and what’s on it, but not the armory?”

He sighed and shut his eyes. “Correct.”

“Who is expecting us? I imagine there won’t be a sea of journalists outside the front door? We’re both fugitives.”

“You’re not a fugitive.”

“Go to Capitol Hill and take a poll.”

Steve winced. The quinjet had gone dead-quiet and he could feel three sets of eyes boring holes into his skull. Sam’s gaze was extremely wary, knowing what Steve would have to say and ready to defend him if need be. He had a feeling that Nat and Bucky both knew what he was going to say too and hoped the quinjet actually made it to the Tower. “The Avengers will know.”

“The Avengers?” Natasha said slowly. “You sent an email to Thor, I take it?”

“Not exactly.”

“So Stark, Clint, Pepper, you two, and we’ll warn any other Avengers as they walk in the door?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

There was a sound that ranged somewhere between a groan and a growl from somewhere behind them. Evidently, Bucky had enough memories to know what it meant when Steve said ‘ma’am.’ “We’re not leaving Avengers Tower, are we?”

Natasha’s hand tightened on his shoulder in something resembling a threat. Sam’s eyes snapped to the skyline as Steve began to backpedal. “It’s not safe for either of you to be anywhere but the Tower right now. We can protect you there. There are a lot of people out there who would love an opportunity to kill you or use you.”

“I have work to do, Steve,” Natasha said impatiently. There was a creak of metal that sounded like the arm of a chair being destroyed by a metal hand.

“I’m not saying you can’t leave. I’m saying you can’t go alone. If you have somewhere you need to be, clear it with Tony and we’ll get you there.”

“We?”

“Yes. We.” He looked up then into Natasha’s green eyes glittering like emeralds. Her face was marble, her jaw like the edge of a knife. “If you want to keep hunting traffickers, fine. I’ll go with you and we’ll break down doors. If he wants to keep burning Hydra bases, fine. I’ll go with him and _we’ll_ break down doors.”

“Breaking down doors might work for you, Rogers, but I don’t operate that way,” she said tightly.

Something dark turned over inside him and his jaw hardened to stone. “I know that and I don’t support it. If you don’t want my help, fine. You can do your hacking thing and bring people down that way. If you want to go in person, you’re not going in shackles and you’re not getting drugged and beat up.”

“I’ve been doing this for years, Rogers…”

“Years when there wasn’t anyone who cared enough to stop you,” he snapped. “Now there’s me and I’m stopping you.”

That caught her off-guard. The rest of her was stone, but he saw something change in her eyes that he couldn’t read. He never could read her. “Fine,” she finally said. “Have it your way.”

There was quiet for a long, heavy moment, then, in a low rasp of a voice, Bucky said, “Are you sure about this, Steve? You know I haven’t exactly been burning empty buildings.”

His stomach twisted harshly and his eyes fell shut as if that would scrub away the images those words brought on. “I had hoped I was wrong, but yeah, I kind of figured that.”

“And you still want to give me a lift to the next Hydra base I remember?”

“Yes. But next time, we’re going to do things the right way. Burn the buildings, leave the evidence and the unconscious soldiers for the local police to clean up.”

“Hydra doesn’t really give you that option. They’re still using those damn cyanide pills and the local police are just as likely to patch the survivors up and set them loose as shoot them then and there.”

Steve turned slowly in his seat, letting Natasha’s hand drop. Bucky was leaning against a storage locker about eight feet away, his arms crossed and a glare arranged on his worse-for-wear face. He was sporting a beard, near-black shadows under his eyes, and several half-healed cuts and bruises. But Steve knew those ice-blue eyes, knew the anxiety in the tick of his jaw and in the way his eyes darted to the quinjet’s dashboard like he was considering hijacking it. “Here’s the thing, Buck,” Steve said gently, all the fight seeping from him at the sight of what was left of his best friend. “I want you to have a chance to get your memories back and to deal with the shit Hydra put in your head. I want to help you get through that. And I do want to help you bring them to justice for what they did to you. Justice, not revenge. I don’t know what that looks like yet, but I’ll work with you if you work with me.”

Bucky’s mouth pressed into a thin line and he dropped his gaze to his boots. “I don’t think I’m worth that.”

The words gutted Steve and he stood, shaking a bit, and moved to place his hands on Bucky’s elbows. Bucky didn’t uncross his arms or meet Steve’s eyes. “You’re worth it. Give me a chance to prove it to you.”

For a moment, they just stood there like that, then Sam said, “Cap? We’re on final approach. Tell me where to land this bird.”

Bucky screwed his eyes shut tight, then met Steve’s gaze. “To the end of the line?”

Relief washed through him and he nodded. “To the end of the line.”

\---------------

The last time Natasha had seen Tony Stark, he’d been dancing on a piano at his Christmas party. Now, he was standing on the quinjet pad with his arms crossed looking like a wary father about to welcome a pair of dangerous prodigal children.

“Hey, Shellhead,” she said as she stepped off the quinjet’s ramp, leading their small crew. “Miss me?”

“Red,” he said, nodding to her. “I always miss seeing you. It’s the fallout I don’t miss so much.”

“Last time we saw each other, the fallout was you falling off that piano.”

“Yes, and I seem to recall matching you with shots of vodka leading up to that, so yeah, that would be on you.”

She couldn’t help grinning. “Not my fault you tried to outdrink a Russian.”

“Is that what happened that night?” Steve asked, catching up to her where she’d stopped near Tony. “Nat, you were totally fine. We went for a ten-mile run the next morning.”

“Like I said, he _tried_ to outdrink a Russian,” she said. She had always loved her vodka.

“Yeah, alright.” Tony wiped clear his expression, which had gone slightly sheepish, and turned his attention to Barnes, who was hovering back near the quinjet ramp as if debating getting right back on it. He probably was. “You must be the Terminator.”

Barnes stiffened and his eyes sharpened. There was an awful lot going on behind those eyes. After a moment’s hesitation, he took a few steps forward, then said quietly, “You must be Tony Stark.”

“The one and only,” Tony said stiffly. “I’d ask you to surrender your weapons, but I assume the arm doesn’t come off, so there’s really no point to that.”

Barnes’ jaw was made of stone. “The arm is permanent and it’s my best weapon, so yeah, there’s no point. I hear I don’t have access to any of your toys or floors anyway, though, so I think you’ve got your bases covered.”

Tony’s teeth grated as he tightened his jaw and looked to Natasha. “Sorry about that. If you are found here, I don’t really want to be accused of arming you.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I take it my new Bites are on hold, then?”

“The _jewelry_ I designed for you is on your floor, where it belongs. Now, let’s go. I have breakfast waiting.”

The breakfast was laid out in the kitchen of the communal floor. Her stomach rumbled at the smell of it and she remembered very vividly the fact that all she’d had since yesterday’s Chinese had been a protein bar on the quinjet. There was fruit, donuts, scrambled eggs, bacon, and coffee, as well as a steaming teapot that she recognized from the times she and the guys had had breakfast together when she’d been staying here last. It was entirely for her benefit and her heart warmed by a few degrees at the sight. She shot a look at Tony and he gave her a tight smile in return. So, he was happier to see her than he was letting on.

They ate in near silence, Steve and Barnes putting away half a ton of food each. She noted that Barnes test-tasted every new food for a long moment before proceeding to devour it, as if he expected poison. It hadn’t been that long since she’d kicked the same habit and she wondered if he’d picked it up in the same place. It seemed naïve to call it a coincidence that he’d spent the last several decades based in Russia under the thumb of a secret intelligence apparatus, just like her, even if they were different apparatuses. She didn’t recall knowing him at all, but there were plenty of other things the Red Room had cut out of her. Maybe they’d cut him out too. After all, he wasn’t supposed to exist.

The tea was her favorite blend prepared in the Russian style that he’d apparently remembered, with lemon, orange zest, and cinnamon in it. It soothed her frayed nerves and chased off what lingered of the aftermath of her missions with the traffickers. It had been weeks since she’d had the opportunity to make it and she had missed it dearly. It was one of the parts of her time in the Red Room that had been uncharacteristically good, having been a treat that was always waiting for her after a successful mission. She wasn’t about to tell Tony that, though, or anyone else.

When his coffee was drained, Barnes leaned towards the still steaming pot of tea and took a curious sniff in its direction. He raised an eyebrow and poured a small cup that he sipped at gingerly. She watched carefully as he stiffened, then took another longer sip. A memory, perhaps? She found it hard to believe that Hydra or the KGB had ever granted him anything more interesting than military rations, but she’d been surprised on rare occasions. Or maybe it was a memory from having spent some time with Russian allies in World War II. She doubted he would tell her if she asked, but she was tempted to prod at him in the future to see if she could jog other memories, including whether they’d known each other. After all, he’d shot her in Odessa, but not killed her, which was outside the Winter Soldier’s typical MO. Maybe he knew something she didn’t.

When the meal was over, she retreated to her floor, finding it untouched save for the notable absence of dust. She changed out of her ill-fitting clothes and into a black leotard, tied her hair into a braid, then went directly to her studio. “Jarvis?”

“Ms. Romanoff?” Jarvis responded from somewhere in the ceiling.

“Play my Tchaikovsky playlist.” Another positive feeling she’d picked up from the Red Room.

“As you wish.”

The music began to swell around her as she laced up her pointe shoes and then she began to dance.

\---------------

Every moment he spent with Tony Stark was torture.

The man was so like Howard in both appearance and mannerisms. He hadn’t remembered Howard, knew him only as a mark and then from the Smithsonian as a friend of Steve’s, but the more time he spent with Howard’s son, the more he remembered the man he’d worked with in the war. Steve had always been far closer to Howard, but Bucky had spent many an evening drinking with Howard and chasing dames with him in towns that would be bombed out a year later. It seemed so strange to think of himself ‘chasing dames’, but the memory was as real as any of the others he’d uncovered. He could taste the pretty words on the tip of his silver tongue, could feel the crooked smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, a mouth he suddenly realized he knew how to use for a number of things other than talking. It was bizarre.

Not as bizarre as sharing breakfast with the son of a man he’d murdered, the son of a woman he’d strangled. Not as bizarre as seeing a living ghost.

He couldn’t believe he’d told Steve and he’d still brought him in. He couldn’t believe Steve wasn’t crawling out of his skin right then. He felt like he was.

And every time he slipped up even the tiniest bit, he felt Romanoff’s searing green eyes on him.

She’d been the one to convince him to come in, really, not Steve. If not for her words, he would never have even engaged Steve in the train station. But after what she’d said, he couldn’t help it. And then on the quinjet, when anxiety over the whole situation had threatened to drown him, she’d given him something he knew to lean on, even if it was weapons.

She was smart, a hell of a lot smarter than him, good with weapons, and shockingly beautiful. The ‘dame-chaser’ in him wanted her like mad.

So strange. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted anything. The last few weeks, he’d chased revenge and his memories, but those weren’t really tangible the way a woman was. Before D.C., he had no memory of _wanting_. He had barely even been human, just a shell of a man, just a weapon.

He was still a shell of a man, but apparently some of him was filling in again.

No one drank Romanoff’s tea except her. Everything else was eaten by everyone and he sampled carefully despite watching Steve eat everything without hesitation, but the tea was apparently either special or something only she wanted. At one point, he sniffed it experimentally. It smelled dark and rich with shards of light in it, sharp spices and citrus. It smelled like…contentment. It smelled safe.

So strange.

He knew every tiny movement he made was being tracked by her and he wondered what she saw, wondered if she was testing him somehow. He’d never backed down from a challenge. So, he poured a bit of tea and took a cautious sip. 

Peace.

Warmth.

_Love._

The feelings nearly bowled him over, but no images or words came with them, just sensory memories, just emotions and the feeling of his chest swelling with contentment. He knew this wasn’t from before the war, wasn’t from Brooklyn. Absolutely not. This was from afterward, from his time as a nameless soldier. This was a tiny bright patch that he had never expected existed.

God, it felt good. He couldn’t remember ever feeling that good.

It wasn’t until he’d drained the tea, savoring every drop, that he remembered Romanoff had been watching him.

They broke apart after breakfast, Romanoff disappearing first, then Stark. Steve led him to the elevator, which in a rather prim voice said, “Welcome, Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes. Shall I take you to your floors?”

“Thank you, Jarvis,” Steve said as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Steve looked to him then and realized that he’d stiffened like a gargoyle at the AI’s voice. “Everything okay, Buck?”

He shook off the unsettled feeling as the elevator descended. “I don’t like machines, ironic as that is. And I’m still getting used to the sound of my name.”

That seemed to give Steve a jolt and his friend stared at him for a moment before burning a hole in the elevator door with his eyes.

The elevator stopped and _Jarvis_ welcomed them to _Sergeant Barnes’s _floor. He pretended not to be affected by the AI. The doors opened and Steve followed him out onto the floor. 

The space was wide open with white walls, soft-looking navy blue furniture, dark wood floors and accents, and a gleaming white and chrome kitchen. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out at Manhattan below. The soldier in him hated those huge windows, imagining the many nearby buildings which had excellent sightlines to them. There were narrow flaps of chrome at the top ends of the windows, though, that he expected hid shades he could figure out how to shut. A massive print of the Brooklyn Bridge hung over the TV in the living area and doors led to what appeared to be a bedroom and bathroom. Images hung on the walls, breaking up the white with splashes of black-and-white, sepia, and full color. 

He began to move slowly around the space, studying the pictures one by one. Someone, Steve he expected, had taken the time to hunt down pictures of him with Steve and with various other men in uniform, men whose names leapt to his mind as he recognized their faces. Dernier, Dugan, Falsworth, Jones, Morita. Peggy Carter and Howard Stark were there too and he stiffened upon seeing their faces. Peggy had been Steve’s love, the woman whose image he carried with him everywhere, the woman he’d apparently lost his chance with when he brought down the Valkyrie. The Smithsonian had told him all that, but now, seeing her standing between Howard and Steve with him, _Bucky_, on Steve’s right side, reminded him of how often he’d caught Steve looking at her picture as they made camp each night.

And Howard, who he’d killed.

“Did you do all this?” he asked Steve quietly.

“Yeah,” Steve admitted sheepishly. “I thought it might help jog your memory, make you feel somewhat at home. I couldn’t find much for pictures of Red Hook, the place has totally changed since we lived there.”

There were pictures of them at Coney Island, though, and at the Stark Expo. He’d forgotten they’d gotten the Polaroids taken, but it came back now, the laughter, the way Steve had groaned as he insisted upon them, the way it felt to toss his arm around his friend’s narrow shoulders.

“I remember,” he said softly, tracing the line of Steve’s face in an image of the two of them grinning after a successful mission taking down a Hydra base. “I remember. Thank you.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, sounding a bit surprised. It probably had been pretty terrifying wondering what to expect from him. After all, it had only been a few weeks ago that he’d been beating Steve to death on the helicarrier, insisting that he didn’t know him. That memory made his gut twist.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “For D.C. and for Howard. For…everything.”

Steve closed the distance between them and put a hand on his shoulder, his left shoulder. “It wasn’t you. It was them using you. I know that.”

“I still did it.”

“You didn’t have a choice.”

Was that true? So much of it was in bits and pieces. He knew he’d killed so many people. He remembered the people on the airstrip at SHIELD. He remembered Howard and Maria. He remembered half a hundred faces he’d only ever seen in black folders and then through the scope of his rifle. Had he had a choice? He knew he’d worked with a team sometimes and alone others. They’d allowed him to operate solo so many times knowing that he might just disappear, but he’d never missed an extraction, at least not that he remembered. Had he had a choice?

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “I don’t know.”


	4. Still Pretty New

Steve left Bucky alone on his floor to adjust to things and went to his own floor only long enough to change into workout gear before he headed for the gym. He needed to punch something. He’d gotten what he’d wanted. Bucky and Natasha were here at Avengers Tower with him, safe within his orbit. But it still felt like a mess.

Because Bucky killed Howard and was now living under Tony’s hospitality.

Because Natasha hated that he and Tony didn’t trust her enough to give her access to the armory.

Because Bucky burned those Hydra bases with operatives inside of them.

Because Natasha had admitted that that trafficker, Volkov, had laid hands on her, had stripped her nearly naked in front of monsters.

Because Bucky remembered only tiny shards of things, only enough to leave him confused and wanting.

Because Natasha had spent the last few weeks hunting down and killing scores of human traffickers who could have been brought before a court of law.

Because both of them still had scores of people out there in the world hunting them, hoping to kill them given the chance. Hydra had not gone down with SHIELD. He didn’t believe that for a moment. _Cut off one head, two more shall take its place._ SHIELD had merely been the tip of the iceberg. And Natasha? How many lives had the Black Widow destroyed? How many evil people out there were seeking vengeance for those deeds?

And the only thing he could do about it was lock up the people he loved the most.

He split a bag and, gritting his teeth, crossed the gym to the closet to grab a new one. As he was hanging it, he realized he was not alone. “Easy, Capsicle,” Tony said as the elevator doors shut behind him. “We’ve talked about you breaking my stuff.”

“And I appreciate that you provide replacement stuff anyway,” Steve said, turning to face Tony, who he realized was also in workout gear. “What are you doing down here?”

Tony shrugged and began to tape his hands. “Oh, you know. Feeling a little tense. Having your pet Russian assassins around will do that. Though the Manchurian Candidate seems to be in better shape than I was expecting.”

“I agree.” Steve watched him continue to wrap his hands for a minute, then asked, “Are you here for the punching bag or do you want to box?”

“Well, I wasn’t expecting to find an opponent down here, but sure. Boxing only, though. No super-soldier bullshit.”

They donned boxing gloves and helmets and went to Tony’s boxing ring. Steve was already warmed up from the bag and dealt Tony a few hits before he caught up. Though he didn’t have the strength or height Steve did, Tony was a good boxer, having been trained by Happy and having spent enough time sparring with the other Avengers. Steve recognized that Tony relied too much on his suit to protect him, which was fine when he was able to keep his gear near him, but not fine if he were ever unarmed or his gear failed. It seemed to Steve that technology failed more often than it worked. Recognizing the risk of being physically weak without his suit, Tony allowed this to be one area where he let his paranoia win out over his ego and spent quality time in the gym.

They were both bruised, battered, and dripping sweat before they called it quits. Steve felt much better about everything, but that feeling began to fade with every step he took away from the ring. “What’s eating you?” Tony asked between gulps from his water bottle. “You got your pet assassins back.”

“Yeah, but they’re in rough shape and I’m not sure I know how to help.” Steve hesitated, wanting to tell Tony about the Winter Soldier killing Howard and Maria, but knowing it was the wrong time. Maybe it would never be the right time. Finally, he settled on a different truth, staring across the gym seeing nothing. “Nat was using herself as bait to bring down human traffickers.”

Tony groaned and rolled his eyes. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Tony, she was pretty shaken up. Like I’ve never seen her shaken up.”

Tony raised an eyebrow at him and lowered his water bottle. “Red? Shaken up?”

He nodded stiffly, unsettled just by the memory of her, bruised and battered, standing there in that skimpy dress looking haggard and exhausted. Even worse, the rawness in her voice as she said _it’s not really hotel lobby conversation._ “I don’t want to know what they did to her, what she _let_ them do to her. What little I know is ugly.”

Tony frowned deeply and proceeded to remove his helmet. “What did they do?” he asked, protectiveness bringing his voice down. Steve hadn’t expected that from him, but he was in support of anyone willing to be protective of Natasha.

“They beat her up pretty bad, drugged her.” His gut twisted and he forced the next words past his tongue. “The ringleader…he stripped her in front of the buyers and ran his hands over her. That was just the last group she worked. I don’t know what else she’s been dealing with.”

“Jesus,” Tony hissed. “She killed him? Them?”

Steve nodded. “I watched them cart out the body bags. More than a dozen of them. She said the ringleader was the first she took down.”

“Good.” Tony exhaled sharply and his eyes darted to stare out into space, his thoughts leaping about as they often did. “Pepper would say that when it comes to reading women, I have the emotional range of a teaspoon.”

“I’m not any better. Bucky was always the ladies’ man.” He shut his eyes tight against the pain those memories brought him. Would Bucky ever remember that? Would he ever have that swagger back? “I know she needs someone right now, though.”

“You’re a better listener than you give yourself credit for, Cap.” Tony tossed his helmet in the general direction of the ring, then paced towards the mats to stretch. In retrospect, they probably should have stretched before boxing. “You don’t have to be a ladies’ man, just a friend.”

_How about a friend?_

Maybe that was all he needed to be.

Before long, he’d made it through the shower and was stepping into the elevator again. “Good afternoon, Captain Rogers,” Jarvis said.

“Hey, Jarvis. Natasha’s floor, please.”

“As you wish, Captain.” The elevator began to ascend. “Ms. Romanoff is currently in her dance studio.”

He remembered well how she liked to dance after difficult missions or late at night when she couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t help frowning, thinking of a time or two when he’d forced her to stop dancing and as soon as she did, her legs went out from under her and she couldn’t walk from exhaustion and pain in her feet. “How long has she been there?”

“Two hours and thirty-eight minutes.”

Steve shut his eyes at the thought of what he was walking into. “I’ll announce myself.”

“Very well, Captain.” The elevator came to a stop and the doors opened on Natasha’s floor. Steve walked slowly through it, feeling like an intruder though he’d probably spent nearly as much time here as Natasha. They’d spent quite a bit of time here catching up on all the films he’d missed or playing videogames, an odd hobby he’d discovered of hers. The floor was hardly decorated at all and Nat had very few possessions in it, though Steve suspected there were at least a dozen weapons stashed around. The studio door was shut and loud classical music he didn’t recognize hummed from inside. He approached the door, took a deep breath to prepare himself, and entered.

Natasha didn’t look up at him as he entered the studio, just continued to twirl slowly, her arms and left leg high in the air, her right foot on pointe. Her eyes were shut and he always wondered how she managed to keep her balance blind. Maybe it was something she’d been trained to do or something she’d trained herself to do so she could work better in the dark. He stood there and watched her for a long time as she moved with the music, speeding up and slowing down with it, her arms like water flowing around her, the muscles in her bare legs taut with effort as she raised and lowered herself on them, always moving. He had come here intending to make her stop dancing, but now he was entranced watching her, admiring her grace, her beauty, her strength. It was beautiful.

“It’s not polite to stare,” she said softly, not for an instant pausing in her dance.

He pushed himself off the doorframe he’d been leaning against. “I came to rub your feet. I have a feeling you’re going to need it.”

“Jarvis?” Natasha said. The music began to slow and quiet and Natasha slowed with it until silence fell and she descended to kneel on the hardwood floor, facing away from him. He moved towards her, his footsteps painfully loud in the otherwise silent studio. Natasha slowly extended one leg, then the other, folding herself in half to touch her toes. “I always do appreciate a foot rub, though I think you’ll mind less after I’ve had a shower.”

“Maybe a bath,” he suggested. “Last time we did this, you could hardly stand afterward.”

“Ugh. Not a fond memory.” She began to massage her legs, her narrow fingers digging deep into the muscles, her spine curving as she reached for her calves. He realized that he was admiring her back, her hair, her hips, and abruptly looked away, heat rising in his cheeks. “I do love baths, though. Jarvis, can you run a bath for me? I don’t know if you have control of the plumbing.”

“I do, Ms. Romanoff, and I am starting the water as we speak.”

“Thanks.” She looked over her shoulder at Steve briefly, then turned back to unlace her pointe shoes. “And thank you to you. You’re probably right that I’m going to be sore after this. I needed it, though.”

“Why do you do it?”

She shrugged. Her face was perfectly clear, an expression he’d learned was a mask for her to hide behind. It worked; he never knew what she was thinking. “It clears my head. Lets me give myself over to something else. I become the music.”

“Must be…peaceful?”

“It is.” She set her pointe shoes aside and began to rise, then winced and sat back down. “Give me a hand?”

He took the last few steps to her and gently pulled her to her feet by her shoulders. She groaned and leaned against him, then Steve was leading her, limping, to her bedroom and beyond to her bathroom where they could hear the water gathering in the bathtub. He looked down at her feet and saw they were blistered and bruised an angry violet-red. “Jesus, Nat.”

“It’s nothing,” she said wearily. “When I was a girl, they made us dance until one-by-one we collapsed. I’d walk away with my toes bleeding, sometimes broken.”

Christ. He couldn’t help shuddering at that and wondered if she’d said that intentionally or if it was a slip because she was in pain. She never talked about her past. “Was that at the Red Room?”

She nodded once, then he was setting her down on the edge of the tub. She didn’t look at him as she poured bath salts into the running water, then shut it off. Her hands went to the straps of her leotard then, but she hesitated, her eyes wandering down her body to her quivering legs. She met his gaze then, a teasing grin lifting one corner of her mouth. The rest of her face was clear, though, which was how he knew she was in pain, anxious, or both. “So, what does a girl have to do to get Captain America to help her out of her clothes? I don’t really want to go into this tub headfirst.”

A searing blush started in his neck and rose up his face to his hairline. He’d been doing a good job of ignoring it up to that point, but he now couldn’t look past the fact that her powerful, beautiful legs were totally bare and her leotard left nothing to the imagination. She wore no bra underneath, the shape of her was all real, all Nat, and he wanted to see her, touch her, kiss her.

He’d seen Natasha in various states of undress before as they suited up and dressed down before and after missions or when she went after marks undercover in skimpy outfits that made him sick to think of what she was doing to get the jump on them. That had been before, though. Before he’d kissed her, before he’d trusted her, before he’d begun to love her. “Well,” he choked out, “I’d hate to see you go headfirst into the tub, but I don’t think it’d be right for me to help a single lady out of her clothes.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow, still grinning in that teasing way. “But we both know I’m no lady.” Steve huffed at that, hating that she saw herself as devalued. Natasha’s grin faded after a moment, then she said, “Come on, Steve. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

Half-glimpses in a locker room were nothing compared to helping her get fully naked and into a bathtub. He was rapidly giving up on arguing with her, though. He grimaced in discomfort, scratched the back of his neck as he tried to think of a rebuttal, then gave in. “Fine. Tell me if I hurt you or crowd you, though.”

“Not likely,” she said as he approached, peeling one strap of her leotard off her shoulder, then the other. The leotard was stuck to her with sweat and she had to roll it to peel it down her body. Her breasts fell free and he tried very hard not to look, but couldn’t damn well help it. He’d made out with one or two of the girls she’d set him up on dates with, so hers weren’t the first breasts he’d seen in his life, but they were fucking perfect and he realized with horror that he was salivating wanting them in his hands, in his mouth. Natasha either didn’t notice his reaction or ignored it, rolling her leotard the rest of the way to her hips, revealing scars along the way, including the angry one on her lower abdomen from when the Winter Soldier had given her that gut shot in Odessa. She looked up and met his eyes then, her hands stilling. “You good, Rogers? This is the part I need help with.”

He swallowed his desire and embarrassment and nodded. “Sure.”

The smirk returned and she asked, “First naked girl since 1945?”

Steve shut his eyes hard and shook his head to dispel the images. “You know what, Romanoff…” 

“Actually, I don’t, and I’m curious.”

He glared at her, succeeding at not looking at her gorgeous breasts. “Fine. There hasn’t been a naked girl since I came out of the ice.”

The coolness faded a bit from her expression and her smile warmly be a few degrees. “You’re too damn sweet, Steve. You know you could have any girl you wanted.”

He couldn’t damn well help it. He was caught up in her emerald eyes, feeling the heat and humidity rising up from the bath water, lost in the fact that she was completely topless within arms’ length of him. “Any girl?”

Natasha’s face cleared in surprise and she tilted her head, leaning back just slightly in a way that had her breasts rising up just a bit. He couldn’t help a glance at them before his eyes were back on hers. “Who do you want me to be?”

She’d asked him that before and he’d answered _a friend_. That wasn’t exactly right now that he remembered it, though. He didn’t want her to be his friend because he’d asked for it. He wanted her to be _Natasha._ “You,” he said hoarsely. “I want you to be you.”

Her eyes softened and she stared at him for a heavy moment, then she reached out and took his hand, tugging him closer, into her orbit. He let her and stepped close enough that their legs touched. She laid his hand on her collarbone, then slowly dragged it to the center of her chest, between her lovely breasts, her eyes never leaving his as her skin burned his palm. “Any girl,” she said.

_Any girl_. His heart felt like it would burst out of his chest as he descended to one knee on the bathroom floor and kissed her.

\-------------------

She hadn’t actually expected him to agree to help her out of her leotard, nor had she expected his assertion that there hadn’t been anyone since 1945, and least of all his question with those molten blue eyes on hers, _any girl?_

Steve wanted her? Captain America wanted _her_? He knew what she’d done, what she was capable of, who she’d been and still sometimes was. He’d seen the bodies, knew there was so much red in her ledger. And still, he counted her enough of a friend to chase her to the other side of the earth and bring her home. Still, he wanted her as more than a friend, wanted her as a lover.

She didn’t deserve it.

But that didn’t mean she didn’t want it. She wanted someone who knew her and who wanted her anyway, someone she could trust and count on. She wanted someone who cared about her, someone gentle, someone who’d protect her even when she didn’t think she needed it. She wanted him.

She laid his hand on her and answered him, “Any girl.”

He didn’t seem to expect that any more than she’d expected the last few minutes, but in a moment, he was on his knees in front of her and his mouth was on hers. At first, it wasn’t so different from kissing him in that mall, sweet, tentative, a little surprised and disbelieving. Then his free hand cradled her face, his thumb brushing gently along her jaw, and the sweet gesture made her breath hitch. Their lips parted in the same moment and their tongues met. He tasted like coffee and smelled of soap and a soft aftershave he used that was very masculine and yet not aggressive, just like him. She breathed it in and kissed him deeper, needing more of him. She was incredibly aware of how hot and humid it was in here, so much so that she felt tipsy, and she was incredibly aware of how close she was to naked and how much she wanted to be naked. The kiss became faster, needier, and she pulled his hand to her right breast. They both shuddered at the contact…it had been so long since someone had touched her who she’d actually wanted. Steve tilted her head back to kiss her deeper as his hand explored her, cradling her and teasing her nipple in a way that made her gasp. “Okay?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

“Yes. God, Steve….” She kissed him hard, probably bruising their lips, but she really didn’t care. She just wanted him. He kissed her back, rolling her nipple between his fingers so she squirmed and gasped again. God, that felt good. She could feel all the tension leaving her body the way it did when she danced and she felt less and less of what was outside of her body, outside of Steve and his hands and mouth on her. It felt so good.

She wrapped her legs around him and reeled him in by them, pressing him to her. She could just barely feel the hardness at the front of his jeans and rocked once against him, unable to stop the shudder that racked her at the friction. “Nat,” Steve gasped. “I shouldn’t fall into bed with you. It wouldn’t be right.”

That stung a bit, but she tried to hide it. “I was actually thinking this tub.”

He kissed her again, softer and sweeter this time, then said, “You’re hurting. Let me take care of you.”

She could think of a few ways she wanted him to take care of her, but apparently things weren’t going to go that far. Steve brushed his fingertips over her nipple again, then lowered his other hand to the base of her spine to rock her against him again. He groaned and kissed her roughly, then said against her mouth, “It’s not that I don’t want you, though. I want you more than anything.”

“You have me,” she whispered.

“I know, and that’s worth a hell of a lot to me, so I’m going to do right by you and show you how much it means to me.” He kissed her one more time, then his hands slid down her to where her leotard was stretched across her hips. “How do you want to do this?”

She dropped her legs from around his waist and wrapped her arms over his broad shoulders, looking up to find his pupils wide with desire, his blue eyes molten. “Lift me up and take it off for me?”

“Okay,” he said, his voice raw with want. He straightened enough to lift her just off the edge of the tub, then his hands skimmed down her, dragging the leotard with them to her knees, where it dropped. She watched his eyes rake down her body, saw the naked admiration there, so much more than just lust. “Fuck, Nat.”

“Language, Captain,” she said softly.

He kissed her again, sloppily as if he was a little drunk on her. “Let’s get you into that tub.”

She couldn’t deny the disappointment, but she didn’t argue, just slid into the large bathtub with his help and sank in up to her shoulders. Her eyes fell shut as the heat seeped into her aching muscles and she groaned. “Mmm, I needed this.”

Steve kissed her temple and whispered, “See? Good idea.”

She turned her head to catch his mouth in another kiss that he sank into hungrily. Dripping hot water, she brought her hand up to twine into the blond hair at the nape of his neck and hold him there, then shivered as his hand slipped under the water to run down her body. When his fingertips teased along her inner thigh, she shuddered. “Don’t stop,” she moaned.

Steve kissed her slow and deep as he slipped his hand down between her legs. She was clean-shaven and glad of it because she could feel his skin directly on her before he slid one finger inside her. A jolt ran up her spine and she moaned against his lips. Steve broke the kiss, his finger moving slowly inside her, and whispered, “Tell me what you want.”

“More. More of you.”

He began kissing her again and a second finger joined the first, sending her muscles to seizing in a way that felt so damn good. It had been so long and she wasn’t going to last, especially if she gave him any more pointers. It seemed he didn’t need them, though, because as he swirled his tongue around hers, he curled his fingers inside her. When he hit _that spot_¸ her lips parted in an ‘O’ and she gasped his name. “Steve.”

“Right there, darling?”

She couldn’t speak for the rush of desperation coursing through her, but he got the message anyway and curled his fingers slowly inside her, stroking that spot until she unraveled, crying out and gasping, her fingers digging into his shoulder.

When it was over, she sank bonelessly into the tub up to her shoulders again, her eyelids heavy and her arms weak as she lowered them into the water. Steve pulled his hand from her slowly, drawing a final shudder out of her as he did, then kissed her forehead and whispered, “I love that look on your face. You’re so damn beautiful.”

Something inside her chest warmed and expanded and she opened her eyes drowsily to look up at him. He looked almost as wrecked as she was and she shut his eyes again when he bent to kiss her soft and sweet.

After, he sat on the edge of the tub and they talked quietly as he massaged her legs and feet. At one point, he kissed the top of one foot, his face contorted with concern, and said, “I wish you wouldn’t do this to yourself. I hate seeing you hurt.”

“Sometimes hurting on the outside is better than on the inside,” she said.

His eyes leapt to hers, then he kissed her toes before lowering her foot back into the water. “If I had my way, you wouldn’t hurt at all.”

\----------------

He spent a long time just laying on the floor in the living room, _Bucky’s_ living room, _his _living room, and staring up at the print of the Brooklyn Bridge. He kept wanting it to bring forward a memory, but it just wasn’t happening, though he seemed to be giving himself a nasty headache trying so hard. Maybe walking the neighborhood he didn’t remember would knock some things loose, even if it was as different as Steve said it was.

Eventually, Jarvis startled him to his feet by announcing Steve’s impending arrival. It must have been hours that he was laying there on the floor. Steve entered the floor carrying a paper bag of what looked like some kind of takeout food. He was flushed and there was a tiny upturn to one corner of his mouth. Some part of him, _Bucky_ perhaps, whispered that Steve looked a bit smug, probably about a woman. Which wasn’t like Steve at all, as far as he knew.

“Hey, Bucky,” Steve said, setting down the takeout on the kitchen counter. “I got food. Want some?”

“Sure.”

Steve began unpacking the cartons of food onto the counter and the warm smells wafted over him as he approached. He knew those smells. They smelled like…home.

“What is all this?”

Steve smiled warmly. “It’s from this Irish pub I found. Your family was Irish and this was the kind of thing your mom always used to cook.”

That quieted something inside him that he hadn’t realized had been rattling around and he helped Steve open the cartons with something like reverence. As he uncovered the foods and the individual scents escaped, the names of them came back. Beef stew, bacon and cabbage, boxties, and coddle. All of a sudden, he could see a tiny kitchen with the stove covered in pots, a knife and cutting board still out next to it, a tall woman with dark brown hair at the stove, stirring something as she called to the next room. “Becca? Could you set the table, a chroi? Dinner’s almost ready.” She glanced back towards him and he recognized his own jawline and steel-blue eyes in that instant. “James, why don’t you get cleaned up? And is Steve joining us?”

The memory ended, but it didn’t fade. It was right there for him to call up when he wanted it. He called on it now, seeing his mom’s face again, hearing her voice, smelling her cooking.

“You okay, Buck?”

He looked up to meet Steve’s eyes and saw raw concern there that only grew when their gazes met. Steve hung his arm over his shoulders and reeled him in for a side-hug. “Hey. You okay?”

Was he okay? Yes and no. He remembered _his mom_. And that was both incredibly good and incredibly sad because he’d never see her except in those half-remembered moments. She had died, years ago, probably, thinking he was dead, thinking he’d fallen off that train and died in the snow. “I…I don’t know. I remembered something.”

Steve’s eyes were boring into him. “Yeah?”

He nodded stiffly. “Yeah. It was…a good memory. But I’ll never have that again.”

Steve looked down at his shoes. “Yeah, I know what that feels like. I went into the ice in 1945 and when I came out, almost everyone was dead and the world had changed entirely. It was…horrible.” He wanted to ask how Steve dealt with that, but the words weren’t come. After a moment, though, Steve said, “I had to learn to recognize the memories as just that, memories. And they were good things, things I didn’t want to let go of and didn’t let go of, but I had to find a way to live knowing I couldn’t go back.”

Find a way to live. It sounded impossible with everything he’d lost, everything he’d done. Steve had been in a block of ice for all that time and come out having lost everything, which was horrible. But he’d been awake most of that time, awake and killing people for Department X or Hydra. How was he supposed to live with remembering his mom and knowing that while she’d been grieving for him, he’d been carrying out assassinations?

“It’s going to be okay, Buck,” Steve said, squeezing his shoulder. “We’ve got each other again now and I’m with you to the end of the line.”

They dished up the food and sat at the dining table by the big windows and ate. The food was wonderful and eating it made him think of the similarities and differences between it and his mom’s cooking, details the like of which he’d never expected to know. He remembered sitting at the dinner table with his parents, his father’s face still foggy, but his mother’s clear as day. He remembered Becca sitting across from him, sixteen and so beautiful already and he’s already had to scare off three boys. He remembered his little sisters on his right and Becca’s left.

It felt so great it hurt.

It was too quiet as they ate, so he tried to think of something _Bucky_ might say. He suspected Bucky would want to know why Steve was back to blushing so fiercely with that little smirk on his face. A shadow of a voice in the back of his head whispered that Steve had finally made it at least to third base with a girl. “So, what are you blushing about?”

Steve managed to blush an even deeper shade of crimson and pointedly stared at his food. “Well, there’s this girl…well, it’s Natasha.”

Something snakelike coiled up in the pit of his stomach. Was that…jealousy? Over what? Over Steve having someone? Romanoff having someone? Them being together? He didn’t know what the hell he was thinking. “Oh?”

Steve’s mouth twisted in discomfort and he had to force the words out. “Yeah. She…well…I kissed her…and…other things.”

Yeah, that was definitely jealousy. What the hell? He stamped it down and forced an almost teasing voice that _Bucky_ seemed to be suggesting. “What things?”

Steve chuckled for a moment, then met his eyes, still blushing red. “Well…you remember that girl, Lorraine, that you went steady with for awhile? Short blond hair, dark eyes, you said she was too smart for you?”

A girl’s giggle echoed like a ghost inside his head. He frowned at it, but no more memories came forward. “Not…exactly.”

Steve’s mouth tightened. In disappointment? Maybe. “Anyway, you told me once about…using…your hands…to…the words you used were ‘make her scream.’”

His eyebrows shot up. That was incredibly strange to think of when he was so used to his bionic arm and the horrible things it could do. To think he’d used his hands, two living hands, on a girl to make her scream with pleasure, not fear, was so bizarre. “Interesting. So…did she scream?”

Steve snorted and a smile curled his lips. It was a smile he couldn’t remember ever seeing on him, though maybe it was locked up in the memories he couldn’t reach. Desire expanded inside him like a balloon and that jealousy coiled up again. What the hell? “‘Scream’ wouldn’t be the right word,” Steve said, “But she definitely enjoyed it.”

It was his turn to snort in amusement and he struggled to bottle up the jealousy as he said, “Well, good on you. So…you and Romanoff…does that make you…whatever the term is now?”

His friend’s forehead creased in confusion. After a moment of thought, Steve said, “I don’t know. I guess I don’t know if Natasha…does commitment. She barely even has possessions to tie her to one place. Asking her for a real relationship…that might be more than she wants to give.”

The jealousy escaped its bottle and strange words flowed past his lips. “Maybe you’re not ready for that anyway? How long have you two been…” the strangest term bounced into his head and he frowned in confusion as he said it, “Fonduing?”

Steve’s eyebrows shot up and he stared at him in something resembling shock. “I can’t believe you remember that.”

He shifted uncomfortably. Steve wanted so badly for him to remember everything and he didn’t know if he ever would. “I don’t really remember the context.” He frowned, though, studying Steve’s face. “I feel like it was an embarrassing story about you, though.”

Steve flushed crimson again. “Yeah. Yeah, it was.” Something inside him wanted to prod Steve for more, but he let it drop. After an odd moment, Steve said, “To answer your question, this is a new thing.”

Was that relief? What in the fuck was going on in his head? He had no memories, no context for these feelings, but he was feeling them anyway. He knew of Steve better than he knew Steve and he hardly knew Romanoff at all. Why should he care what they did together or how long they’d been together? It made no sense. He choked on the emotions and struggled to find something to say. Clearly, Steve was uncomfortable, probably about Romanoff ‘not doing commitment.’ He was supposed to say something. “Maybe if you give her time to get used to it. Maybe she wouldn’t do it if you asked her now, but maybe down the line she would.”

Steve smiled tightly, obviously a little relieved. “Thanks, Bucky. I hope you’re right.”

There was that name again. _Bucky._ His name. It occurred to him that he didn’t really think of himself as the Soldier anymore, but he certainly didn’t think of himself as Bucky either.

Would he ever? Or would he always be in limbo?


	5. Being Human

Steve sat on the roof with Sam that night, drinking some German beer that actually tasted like beer to him. It still wouldn’t get him drunk, unfortunately, but it was nice nonetheless.

Sam was grinning, staring up at the stars. “I can’t believe you went to third fucking base with the Black Widow.”

“Sam, come on,” he groaned. Apparently, his face was an open book. Even as disconnected as he was now, Bucky had recognized the look on his face and even after discussing it at length with him, there had still been enough traces of it in his expression to clue in Sam. Sam, unlike Bucky, required no context and had immediately started laughing and asking for details. Steve had tried to keep the details to a minimum, feeling awful about sharing any part of what he had with Natasha with anyone else, but Sam got in the habit of asking yes or no questions and divining the answers from the look on his face.

“No, you come on, man. This is great!”

“Yeah, until she finds out I told you and snaps my neck,” he said wryly.

“She wouldn’t!”

“Yes, she would. Clearly you don’t know Natasha.”

Sam smirked. “Well, not as well as you do.”

Steve sighed and took a long swig of beer before he firmly changed the conversation. “Bucky’s remembering things. More than I expected.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Both.” Steve swallowed hard and stared up at the stars, looking for constellations. He didn’t know very many, but Bucky had known about a hundred and they would often sit on the roof of Steve’s apartment in Red Hook stargazing. They’d done it when they were in Europe together too, though that had been different.

_They were back at camp and exhausted from the thirty-mile march from Azzano, exhausted from fighting. Night was falling and all he wanted to do was sleep for as long as they would let him. He’d debriefed with Peggy and the Colonel and he knew there would be more to tell them and the others at HQ tomorrow, but for now, he wanted sleep._

_ He was headed for his tent when he noticed the glow of a lit cigarette at the edge of camp. He peered through the darkness and recognized Bucky leaning against a tree, smoking and staring up at the stars. Steve changed course to head that way._

_ Bucky had been seen by an army nurse, but he still looked like hell. His face was badly bruised, wounds ringed his wrists, ankles, and biceps from where he’d been strapped down to that table, all along his arms and hands were half-healed wounds from the dozens of times they’d plugged him full of needles and God knew what else. It made him sick to think about it._

_ “Hey, Buck,” he said, sinking down next to him. Bucky didn’t react, continuing to stare up at the stars. The bones of his face stood out more sharply than they had before and dark circles hung under his eyes. He looked haunted. “I was just heading to bed. You should really do the same. You could use the sleep.”_

_ Bucky shuddered and shook his head, saying nothing. A speechless Bucky was a pretty rare thing and worth quite a bit of concern. Steve frowned deeply and put a hand on Bucky’s knee. “Come on. Let’s go.”_

_ “No,” Bucky said in a rasp. He was still staring sightlessly up at the stars. “If I go to sleep here, I’ll wake up there.”_

_ That got him right in the gut. He squeezed Bucky’s knee and shook it. “Buck, look at me.”_

_ Bucky squeezed his eyes shut tight, exhaled a puff of smoke, then looked at Steve. That look took Steve aback. Bucky’s steel-blue eyes were dark with shadow, his face naked with fear and resignation. “This isn’t real, Stevie. They’re just tricking me again.”_

_ “It’s real, Bucky,” he said firmly, his heart squeezing in his chest like someone was crushing it. He wrapped his arms around his best friend and held him as tight as he could. “It’s real. I’m here with you. You’re safe and you’re never going back there, I swear that to you.” Bucky began to shake and dropped his cigarette in the dirt. His fingers dug into Steve’s shoulders and Steve pulled him into his lap, which was so strange remembering how much bigger than him Bucky used to be. Now he was bigger than Bucky. Bucky curled up in a ball in his arms, his breath a quick rasp that was progressing towards hyperventilation. “Shh…” he murmured. “Easy, Buck. I’m right here. You’re safe and this is real. I swear to God, it’s real.” He blinked hard to keep the tears from falling from his eyes and stared up into the starlight as he rocked Bucky. “Hey, Bucky. What’s that one right there? Is that Andromeda? I can never remember.”_

_ A shudder racked Bucky, but he looked up towards the sky, his head leaned against Steve’s shoulder. “That’s Scorpius, punk,” he said hoarsely._

_ Steve gently removed one hand from Bucky’s back to point up at the sky. “How about that one?”_

_ “That’s Orion. Come on, he’s got the belt. You’re supposed to remember the belt.”_

_ “Oh, yeah. I see it now.”_

_ They passed the night like that, leaning against the tree wrapped up in each other, hardly sleeping, mostly pointing out constellations and, in Bucky’s case, shaking and crying while Steve held him and kissed his hair and tried to soothe him._

It wasn’t the last night they spent that way either and they never got any ribbing for it. The soldiers who knew them knew how close they were and what Bucky had been through, at least that he’d been tortured by Nazis. The ones who didn’t know them knew of Captain America and were not about to face his wrath.

Once, when Bucky was mercifully asleep and Steve and Dugan were by the campfire on watch, Dugan had quietly asked Steve, “So…are you two…together?”

“What?” Steve had asked, aghast. “Of course not. You know that, you’ve watched him charm girls right into bed how many times?”

Dugan had shrugged. “Yeah, but he doesn’t care about those girls, Cap. He cares about you.”

The words rang in his head now as he stared up at the stars with Sam, who couldn’t name more than three constellations. _He cares about you._ Would he ever again? Or was that beyond his capabilities now? A few weeks ago, he’d been doing his damnedest to kill Steve and plenty of other people, Sam and Natasha included. Maybe the fact that Bucky had actually hugged him in the train station was a hell of a lot more progress than he could have ever expected and a good sign for the future.

“What do I do, Sam? This is more your area than mine.”

Sam sighed and shrugged. “He needs time. I know you want him to remember everything and maybe he will someday, but he needs time to do that and to come to terms with what he’s remembering. He’ll have a hell of a lot of bad memories and a lot of the good ones will be of things he lost. He’s going to need time and he’s going to need you to be smart enough to know when he needs space and when he needs a shoulder.”

“I think I can do that.” He sighed. “I hope I can do that.”

\-----------------

Natasha spent that night lying in bed with her StarkPad, reading the intel she’d collected from Volkov and his buyers. She was able to quickly upload the web she’d been filling in to Jarvis, who displayed it for her holographically so she could see everything at once, big picture or details as she chose. Volkov’s documents helped her match some faces with some intel and added strands to the web where new names or new faces appeared. Many were already dead by her hand, but not enough. Too many were still out in the world destroying lives.

She kept getting distracted thinking of Steve. His suggestions of a bath and a massage had greatly helped her pain and mobility issues after dancing, so that was great. And, what had happened between them had absolutely helped in other areas too. Inside her head, it had healed some wounds and opened others.

She didn’t feel so alone anymore.

But how long would that last?

She had never had anything good for very long. The best thing she’d had that made any sense in her head was the work she did for SHIELD, but, in actuality, who knew how much of it had been for Hydra instead? Everything she’d ever done with or for SHIELD was compromised. She was compromised. She had thought she was somewhat free for the first time in her life, but she’d really just been another tool.

It occurred to her that Barnes probably felt the same way, more a weapon than a person. They even had both had someone making a mess of their memories, though she wasn’t ready to admit that to Steve or anyone. Even Clint didn’t know about the huge holes in her mind or the fact that some of the memories she did have suggested she wasn’t nearly as human as he thought. For one thing, she certainly hadn’t been born in 1984 as Zola had said. She wouldn’t have memories of Cold War ops in Cuba and Vietnam if she had been.

She ground her teeth together, shutting down the emotions that were trying to rise to the surface. Emotions made you weak, vulnerable. It was one thing to give Steve a tiny glimpse this afternoon. It was another to be reduced to emotional rubble alone in her bed when she was trying to work.

Ridiculous.

She set herself to her task and continued her research and web-building until deep into the night. When she was struggling to stay awake, she stowed her StarkPad, shut off the lights, and curled up under the covers. In the dark, she focused on her breathing, using pranayama to slow her heartrate and bring on the meditation she used to stay sane. Gradually, her mind emptied of all thought, all feeling, and stepped into the darkness, taking her with it.

Natasha woke gasping for air, shaken to her core, the dream (memory?) still playing across her mind.

“_Malen'kiy pauk…” he whispered to her, his breath ghosting across her parted lips, his fingers twined in her hair, his powerful chest hovering just above her, his other hand gripping the back of her thigh as he moved inside her, thrusting slowly but purposefully. “My Natalia. Scream for me, angel.”_

_ She gasped as he bit at her lower lip and thrusted deeper into her, drawing her leg up tight to her chest. “Someone will hear.”_

_ “I don’t give a damn. No one here knows our names. Who will they tell?”_

_ Having her leg bent up like that had deepened the angle and she was shuddering under him, gasping and moaning. She was so close, so damn close, and she could feel that it would, in fact, be enough to make her scream. “I don’t want to lose you.”_

_ He kissed her then, enveloping her mouth with his, tasting her tongue, breathing her in like he was drowning and she was the air he needed. When he pulled away, she looked up past the dark hair hanging in his face to eyes like steel. “I’ll die before I lose you, Natalia. Now, scream for me.”_

Natasha pulled her knees up and buried her head between them, still gasping as she curled inward on herself. Tears burned in her eyes as hard as she tried to deny them.

Was that the answer then, the reason she couldn’t fully remember him? Was he dead?

And what would Steve think if he knew she was dreaming about another man?

She lurched out of bed and made it to the bathroom in time to vomit into the toilet.

When it was over, she washed out her mouth and went to her studio. She didn’t feel capable of dancing, no matter how much she needed to, but she could manage yoga. She moved into her opening asana and fully focused on her pranayama as she began to stretch and flex.

By the time she finished, the sun was rising, casting the studio in shards of grey light. Physically exhausted, she returned to bed, telling Jarvis as she buried herself in the covers that he was to tell anyone looking for her that she was unavailable until noon.

\-----------------

That morning, he decided to try to feel human again.

It had been a long time since he last felt human. In fact, memories of _feeling human_ were so very distant that they hardly seemed real. But, he wanted that again, wanted to feel like more than just a shell of a man, wanted to feel alive and in the present, not lost leapfrogging through time.

He spent some time lying in bed thinking about what made people feel human so he could give it a shot. It occurred to him that he had never as the Winter Soldier cared about his appearance at all. It wasn’t something they’d bothered to program in. Looking at the photographs around the floor, though, he got the impression that Bucky had cared. He had a rogueish look to him, sure, dark hair sometimes hanging in his face, a mischievous glint to his eye, but save for two images he’d found out of dozens Steve had framed, he was always perfectly clean-shaven and even when his hair got long enough to hang over his eyes, he made it look intentional.

He got out of bed, went through the pitch-dark bedroom to the bathroom, flipped on the lights and looked in the mirror. His hair was past his shoulders now, his beard fully filled in and getting long, his eyes hooded and partially hidden beneath the scars of insomnia. He didn’t look _human_. In fact, he kind of looked like a serial killer.

Which he was.

He didn’t want to think about that, though, not when he was trying to be human. He rifled through the bathroom drawers until he happened upon a razor and a scissors. A bitter part of him thought that even if Stark had taken his arm, he could’ve killed someone just with that little scissors. He shoved the thought aside, though, and set to work.

He had thought it would be awkward or difficult, but it wasn’t. When he stopped thinking too hard about it, his hands moved to where they needed to be completely of their own volition, as if he’d done this a thousand times. Maybe he had. Maybe Bucky had been in the habit of doing his own grooming and doing it very regularly. The beard took a little creativity. Apparently, he’d never let it get this long before and had always used a straight-edged razor, not the modern piece of shit he had to work with. He still didn’t cut himself once. When it was all done, he found a hand-mirror to check the back of his head, but it was perfectly even. Yeah, that was all Bucky.

Maybe he had access to more of his former self than he’d realized.

He took his time cleaning up the hair, then wiping down and putting away the scissors and razor. Then, he showered, taking his time and choosing carefully from the odd array of travel-size soaps that were in the shower. There was one called Axe Black that smelled promising and came in both hair and body forms, so that was what he went with. Out of the shower, he toweled off, wiped the steam away from the mirror and was struck by the reflection staring back at him.

He looked like Bucky fucking Barnes.

He shook off the confusion and told himself that this was a good thing, that he _was_ Bucky Barnes and that this was him becoming more human. He dried his hair a bit more, then arranged it in a way that he realized after-the-fact was the exact way Bucky typically styled it per the photographs. Then, he stood there naked, staring into the mirror at his bionic arm. He hated the damn thing, hated it and loved it, needed it, relied on it, wanted to hack the damn thing off. A part of him wished Stark had ripped it off. It had never occurred to him before that moment, but the red star on his shoulder, the _Soviet star_, was incredibly offensive. He’d given his life as an American fighting for freedom from tyranny, and those bastards had turned him into a slave doing the work of Hydra and the Soviets, often against America. It made him sick to look at it.

It wouldn’t be possible or desirable to remove the whole arm, but he could at least paint over the star.

An idea formed in his head, and he hesitated for a long moment before looking up towards the ceiling and saying, “Jarvis?”

“Yes, Sergeant Barnes?” the ceiling replied.

“I’m never gonna get used to that,” he mumbled to himself. Then, to Jarvis, he said, “Do I have access to a space and materials where I could paint my arm?”

“No, sir. But Mr. Stark may be willing to assist. Shall I ask him?”

That thought made him even more anxious than talking to the AI, but he grimaced and said, “Sure.”

“Very good, sir.”

He wanted to believe that the AI was entirely sound-activated and wasn’t operating on a camera system, but he kind of doubted that. His insides twisting around themselves, he wrapped himself in a towel and made his way to the closet.

Someone, either Steve or Stark, had stocked the closet with a small selection of clothes, which was good because he’d had basically nothing. He’d come here in clothes he’d been wearing for nearly a week. Someone had either known his sizes, which was unsettling, or had been a really good guesser. He found a navy blue Henley that was comfortable and covered his arm down to his hand, a pair of dark grey jeans that fit surprisingly well, black combat boots to replace the pair he’d all but worn through, socks, and boxer briefs. He contemplated putting on the leather gloves he’d been wearing everywhere he had to go in public, thought about using them to hide his hand, but he stashed them in the closet instead. Steve had laid his hand on that arm several times already, had hugged him despite that arm. He wouldn’t care. And the others? Why let the others forget who he was or think he’d forgotten?

No. The arm was a part of him now.

He spent some time staring at the overly complicated coffeemaker thinking that if he could figure the damn thing out, coffee was something that often made people feel more human for various reasons. And he knew he liked coffee, especially this blend judging by the smell of the grounds. Colombian, it was called. After a bit more pacing in the kitchen, he asked the AI, “Jarvis? Is Steve up?”

“Captain Rogers is awake and on his floor, sir.”

Being called ‘sir’ was right up there in weirdness level with being called ‘Sergeant Barnes.’ “Does he know how to brew coffee? ‘Cuz I sure as hell don’t.”

“Yes, sir. Captain Rogers brews his own coffee each morning.”

He raised an eyebrow, newly concerned about the presence of cameras somewhere he couldn’t see them. At the very least, every room in the damn Tower was bugged so Jarvis could hear them and respond. “Okay.” He started towards the elevator. “Can you take me there?”

“Of course, sir.”

The elevator ride was as unnerving as it had been the first time, but he bottled up the anxiety until the doors opened on what must be Steve’s floor. Where his floor was mainly cool colors, Steve’s was mainly browns and warm blues, but otherwise quite similar. The kitchen had dark cabinets and black countertops and Steve was perched on a barstool watching him with saucer-like eyes. “Buck. You look good.”

His insides twisted, though he didn’t know why and worked to hide it. “Thanks.” He made for the kitchen, following the smell of coffee. “I don’t know how to work the damn coffeemaker.”

Steve laughed and pointed to his, where half of a large pot of coffee was waiting. He had a mostly-drained cup on the counter near his hand. “Yeah, they don’t make it like they used to. Go for it.”

He grabbed a mug from the rack next to the coffeemaker, then took an experimental sniff of the coffee. It was the Colombian. Was it a coincidence that he liked the same blend Steve apparently drank? Probably not. He poured the coffee and leaned against the counter to take a sip. It was screaming hot, but felt so damn good trickling through his body, seeping right into his bones. He shut his eyes and exhaled.

“I’ve gotten to be a bit of a pansy when it comes to coffee,” Steve admitted. “I can’t drink it black anymore. I’ve gotten spoiled with the fancy creamers.”

He frowned at Steve. “That’s a thing? Fancy creamers?”

“Yeah.” He lifted his mug. “I’m drinking caramel macchiato right now.”

He couldn’t help curling his lip in distaste. “To each their own.”

Steve laughed again and drained his cup. “Could be worse. Natasha only drinks coffee when it’s black with vodka in it.”

He almost smiled at that, but didn’t. The muscles of his face felt too tight and strained to put in that kind of effort. “She drinks tea, though, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah. That’s her first choice. Don’t try to make it for her, it’s not possible.” Steve moved to the coffeemaker and refilled his mug. “I swear she drinks a dozen different blends and she prepares them all differently.”

If she prepared them so specifically, then why had he recognized her tea at breakfast? He frowned deeply at that thought. “What was she drinking at breakfast when we got here?”

“That’s her Russian blend. Insanely complicated to get right. Tony must have had to watch her like a hawk to learn it…it’s got all these spices in it and lemon and orange.”

A Russian blend. So, he’d probably had it in Russia, but Russia was where all the bad memories were from. That left more questions than answers. Maybe he’d had it with the mystery woman from his dreams. “Huh. It…tasted familiar.”

“Familiar…in a good way?” Steve asked haltingly.

“Yeah.” His frown deepened. “I don’t know where I knew it from, but it was a good memory.”

“Ask Natasha to make it for you again sometime. She’ll probably love to hear that someone will drink tea with her.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

They drank their coffee together, talking quietly. They eventually brewed a second pot and were working on that when Jarvis informed them, “Mr. Stark will be arriving shortly.”

Steve raised an eyebrow at him. “Normally he’s hiding in his lab about now or having breakfast with Pepper.”

He shut his eyes and groaned quietly. “It’s me.”

Before he could explain further, the elevator doors opened and Stark emerged from them, all in black with a band logo he didn’t recognize printed on his t-shirt. Stark opened his arms wide in greeting. “Ah! I smell coffee. Thank God.”

Steve retrieved a mug and began to fill it. “Good morning, Tony. You’re not usually about at this time of day.”

Stark accepted the coffee and went for the fridge, retrieving a jug of ‘fancy creamer.’ “Yeah, well, a little bird told me that the Terminator would like some assistance with the arm.”

Steve’s eyes snapped to him and he met Stark’s gaze, watching as the other man took in his cleaned-up appearance with visible surprise. “The Terminator, whatever that is, would like to paint his arm.”

“If we’re doing tattoos, I have a few suggestions in mind, mostly for Red,” Stark said with a smirk. “What are you thinking?”

He gritted his teeth. Something about what Stark had said grated on him. “I want the star gone. I don’t particularly care how. I was thinking it would involve painting the whole thing a solid color or painting something else over the star.”

“Not feeling so attached to the Motherland anymore?” Stark asked, raising an eyebrow.

Oddly enough, that didn’t irritate him as much as Stark’s comment about ‘Red,’ aka Romanoff. “You could say that.”

Stark took a long sip of his coffee, then said, “Cool. Do you want to think about it? Maybe look through some Instagram pages for inspiration?”

“I don’t know what that means and no. I just want it gone. Today.”

Steve was staring at him, his blue eyes piercing, but Stark just shrugged. “You got it. You have until I finish this coffee to decide before we go to the paintshop.”

As Stark took another sip of his coffee, Steve set his down. “You sure about this, Buck?”

He looked to Steve and pointed to his left shoulder and the star hidden under his sleeve. “They brainwashed me, Steve. They scrubbed everything away and the only piece of identity they gave me was this, like they were stamping a damn weapon with the Soviet logo. I want it gone.”

Steve nodded, his jaw setting and his eyes softening. Was that respect? “Okay.”


	6. In This Moment

Steve waited anxiously outside Tony’s paintshop, trying to give Bucky his space. He didn’t want to even indirectly influence this decision, one of the first big decisions he’d made since 1944.

_They brainwashed me, Steve._

He knew that the more Bucky remembered, the more he’d want to hunt down Hydra, and that should have bothered him knowing the number of bodies Bucky must have left in his wake the last few weeks, but it didn’t. He’d always had a very strong sense of what was right and wrong and when he’d had to make compromises, they were always very carefully thought out. He’d thought about this quite a bit since he learned that Bucky was alive, since he learned what Bucky had become. What Bucky had done as the Winter Soldier and what he’d done out of revenge would never weigh more in Steve’s mind than what had been taken from him, what had been forced on him. He would never in his life forget the absolute horror on Bucky’s face as he remembered him on the helicarrier. He had looked so raw in that moment, like a scared child. It was that look that had caused Steve to hunt him down and bring him home. Now, the thought of Bucky wanting revenge on those monsters…well, Steve could empathize with that.

In this case, revenge and justice looked pretty similar.

Natasha would be proud.

Thinking about revenge and justice and how differently he and Bucky stood on them brought up memories of the war, all bad, some of arguments. Bucky had fought a very different war than Steve had, had been on the front lines in the meat grinder that battles could be, had been trained as a sniper and assassin. When they started working together alongside the Howling Commandoes, Bucky had regularly given himself side-missions, dirty work jobs, without telling Steve until after the fact. The other Commandoes were in on it too, agreeing with Bucky that Steve wouldn’t want to be associated with that work and shouldn’t be, but it still needed to be done. So, it was Bucky who pretended to be asleep, then snuck out of camp to smother enemies in their sleep. It was Bucky who put human experiments out of their misery with a bullet to the head. It was Bucky who, on more than one occasion, had garroted a man to death. All of those memories would be coming back too and he’d absolutely had a choice then. He’d just always chosen to protect Steve, even if it meant chipping away at his own heart.

“All done,” Tony said as the paintshop door opened and they emerged. Bucky was holding his shirt in his right hand, his chest covered in scars cut across hard muscle. His bionic arm was now flat black with the exception of chrome edging along each plate that reminded him that the arm was in fact metal.

“Thanks, Stark,” Bucky said. “Will you work on that other thing too?”

“You got it, Terminator,” Tony said, his eyes darting and his mind obviously on six other things already.

“Thanks, Tony,” Steve echoed, before leading Bucky back towards the elevator door, past Tony’s various labs. He had several floors of them that Steve hadn’t even visited. “How long until your paint dries?”

“It should just about be there. I’m just being cautious.”

Steve nodded, not knowing what to say. He wanted to ask what the ‘other thing’ was that Tony was working on for Bucky, but wasn’t sure if he’d want to tell him. Finally, he said something true. “The arm looks cool.”

“Thanks. Should make for less of a target at night too.” 

Steve tried not to be disturbed by that, but couldn’t entirely help it. They got in the elevator and made for Steve’s floor. “Want food? We could order something in.”

Bucky shrugged. “Sure.”

At Steve’s floor, he rifled through his collection of takeout menus and chose a really good local pancake and waffle house that they decided to order from. Just before he made the call, though, it occurred to him that there had been no sign of Natasha that morning and after yesterday, he desperately needed to see her. “Jarvis? Is Natasha around?”

“Ms. Romanoff asked not to be disturbed until noon.”

He raised an eyebrow at that, more than a little concerned. “Well, it’s past eleven. Did she lock her floor against me?”

“She did not, sir.”

He stood up and nodded to Bucky on his way to the elevator. “I’m going to wake Natasha, see if she wants some food. If I don’t come back, send a rescue party.”

Bucky quirked an eyebrow upward. “Wouldn’t a rescue party kill the mood?”

Steve rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help grinning. Bucky had made a joke. “The mood might be a little dangerous for my liking. We’ll see.”

Natasha’s floor was dead quiet when he arrived and he tried to move quietly as he entered. Halfway to the bedroom, it occurred to him that Natasha no doubt slept armed and that maybe this wasn’t a great idea. “Natasha?” he called softly.

There was a groan from the bedroom. “Fuck it, Steve, I almost killed you.”

He couldn’t help snorting at that and, as he entered the bedroom, he watched her stash her handgun between the bed and the nightstand. She then rolled onto her stomach, burying her face in the pillow. Her hair was a tumble of red that he wanted to make even messier than it was and whatever she was wearing consisted only of narrow black straps over her shoulders to her mid-back, where the sheets covered her.

He got onto the bed on his hands and knees and crawled up it, leaning over her to run his hands up from her hip to her bare shoulder. Then, he pressed a kiss between her shoulder blades. “I came to ask if you wanted food. It’s eleven-thirty.”

“Mmm….” Natasha pushed off of one arm and lazily rolled over so she was lying underneath him. Whatever she was wearing, the sheets were doing more to hide her breasts than it was. A slow smile played across her lovely lips. “You sure that’s what you came in here for?”

“That’s what brought me here,” Steve amended, his whole body warming just looking at her. He sank down beside her and cradled her face in his hand to kiss her. She was tired, he could tell by the lazy way she was kissing him, but that didn’t make it any less great. In fact, it made it better. He groaned with desire and slid his hand under the sheet and down her body to grab her hip. Whatever she was wearing was lace. “That’s not what I’m staying for, though.”

Natasha chuckled and kissed him deeper, teasing his tongue with hers. Just when he thought he’d be able to walk away with dignity and call that enough for now, she shoved the covers down to her waist. She was wearing a sheer black lace nightgown that did nothing to hide her lovely breasts or the fact that she wasn’t wearing panties. The breath rushed from his lungs, but before he could run his hands over her, she had kicked off the covers and rolled to face him, wrapping one leg around his waist. It had the same effect as when she’d done it on the edge of the tub yesterday in that it made him instantly rock-hard and told him that he had to either stop right there or plunge forward. “Fuck, Nat…” he groaned.

She grinned and began to rock slowly against him so that he saw stars. “You know, I kind of like the mouth you have on you, Captain. I would not have guessed that.”

He groaned again and found his hand at her lower back, urging her on and moving in time with her to press her tighter against him. “Nat, we’ve got to stop. This is a bad idea.”

“I think it’s an excellent idea,” she purred in his ear.

Then, his mouth was on her neck, kissing, sucking, licking, tasting every inch of her. She moaned softly and it brought him back to feeling her come around his hand and the sounds she’d made then. He wanted to hear that again, wanted to see the face she made.

And she wasn’t a girl he wanted to fall into bed with. He cared too damn much about her for that. When he made love to her, not if, but when, he wanted her to feel special, the way she deserved to feel.

That meant he needed to keep her out of his pants, and her hands were already on his lower back, probably headed for his belt.

He ran his hand down from her back, over her tight ass, and down the back of her thigh. She moaned again and he slid his hand back up between her legs. She was hot and wet, hotter, if it was possible, than when she’d been in that bathtub. She gasped at his touch and he drove one finger deep inside her, making her cry out. The sound made his cock twitch and God, he wanted to hear that again. He thrusted into her again and again, moving his mouth down her chest to her breasts as he did it. He couldn’t taste her skin through the lace, but she didn’t seem to mind. In fact, as he drew one nipple into his mouth, she arched her back, pressing herself into him. “Oh…Steve…” she moaned.

He slid a second finger inside her and she cried out again, gasping and moaning with every thrust. When he curled his fingers in her the way she liked, the way Bucky had once told him girls liked, she gasped, “Fuck! Steve…fuck, I want you.”

“I want you too, darling,” he murmured into her breasts, never relenting with his hand. “I want you so fucking bad.”

He curled his fingers again and felt a jolt run through her. He looked up to see her eyes shut tight and her lips parted in a gasp. She was close. A thought occurred to him and, on impulse, he twisted his hand slowly, rubbing his knuckles into her.

It was like she’d been shocked. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders and her heel dug into his lower back in an attempt to control her writhing against him. Her muscles all clenched and she did scream softly and he watched her face as her head tilted back and she cried out.

When she was done, he pulled his hand free and just stroked her hip softly, soothing her as she came down. Her muscles turned to water and she asked softly, “Where did Captain America learn that trick?”

“I got a few tips from a friend a long time ago, but the one you’re thinking of was all me.”

Natasha opened one eye to peer at him as she smirked. “You’re more creative than I thought, Rogers.”

He smiled down at her, drunk on love and blushing like mad. “So, pancakes or waffles?”

“Hmm…waffles with strawberries, please.”

\--------------

Feeling thoroughly debauched, she cleaned up after Steve had gone, brushed her wild hair, and dressed for the day. She couldn’t seem to stop smirking. She felt so damn lucky.

When she got to Steve’s floor, she followed the male voices into the kitchen, where she could smell coffee. As she rounded the corner, she froze. Steve was at the island with his back to her, but Barnes was leaned against the opposite counter staring right at her.

He was totally shirtless, his bionic arm now mostly black, his body lined with scars over rippling muscles that gave Steve a run for his money. He was clean-shaven and his hair was cut, though a few strands hung low over his forehead, giving him a rogueish look. His steel-blue eyes cut right into her and in that moment, he seemed painfully familiar and yet entirely strange. “Nice arm,” she finally said.

“Thanks,” Barnes said slowly as Steve turned to smile at Natasha. “Got a new paintjob. Sorry for my state of undress…the paint’s still drying.”

“No worries,” she said dryly. “Not the first time I’ve seen a half-naked man. Though, the arm does give you an exotic look.”

“‘Exotic,’” Barnes repeated, looking to Steve. “There’s something I’ve never been called before.”

Steve nodded. “As far as I know, jerk.”

“Punk,” Barnes shot back.

Steve’s smile was so wide she thought it might fall off his face. He looked to her then, still smiling, and asked, “Do you want coffee? Fresh pot.”

“Depends. Do you have vodka?”

Steve snorted and nodded to the freezer. “Right where you left it.”

Natasha opened the freezer and, indeed, found the vodka right where she’d left it. As she poured two shots into a coffee mug, Barnes watched her and said, “You might regret letting me see where that’s hidden, Steve.”

“You’re welcome to it,” Steve said. Natasha wondered, though, if Barnes could even get drunk. Steve couldn’t and Barnes obviously had some form of super-soldier serum in him. Hell, she had a small dose of a cheap knock-off and it still took her nearly a whole bottle of vodka to get drunk.

She poured her coffee, noting that Barnes was still watching her. “If you ever want to find out who can put away more vodka, let me know.”

“I don’t walk away from challenges,” Barnes said confidently. “And you won’t find me dancing on a piano at the end of it.”

She smirked at that, but she couldn’t help wondering whether Barnes was flirting with her. Was he capable of flirting? From what she’d heard, Bucky Barnes had spent a lot of time successfully ‘chasing dames’ as Steve put it. Maybe this was a bit of Bucky coming out. She looked to Steve as she sipped her coffee. If Steve was wondering the same thing she was, he wasn’t at all bothered by it.

Barnes put his shirt back on before their brunch arrived and they ate together in the living room while the first _Terminator_ movie played. Barnes was watching it intently and shaking his head at the Terminator’s actions. “This is why Stark calls me ‘Terminator’? I think I’m supposed to be offended, but I’m not. This is way too cool.”

“He’s always been into sci-fi,” Steve said, smiling as he watched Barnes as much as the movie. “Just wait until we start the _Star Wars_ movies.”

“What is _Star Wars_?”

“It’s awesome,” she answered before turning to Steve. “The real question, though, is what order you’re going to have him watch them in.”

Steve cringed. “That’s a difficult question.”

“It is.” She decided she was done with her waffles and passed her plate to Steve. It was a habit they’d picked up at some point where he always finished her food. With his super-soldier metabolism, he was never not hungry and, watching the way the massive amount of food they’d ordered was disappearing, it seemed he wasn’t going to get leftovers from Barnes. While Steve began to devour her food, she unfolded herself from the couch and stood, moving out of the living area under the watchful eyes of both Steve and Barnes.

“Where are you going?” Steve asked.

She looked back to him and forced a smile. “I have work to do. Thank you for brunch.”

Barnes’s eyes were burning a hole into the side of her head, but Steve shot up from the couch and was headed in her direction. “Work? Nat, you just got here. Take a day off at least…”

Natasha shook her head slowly and he stopped at arms’ length away. “The world doesn’t take days off, Steve. It keeps turning and every day it turns, someone out there gets bought and sold. I’ll obey your rules if that’s what it takes, but I’m not going to stop.”

Steve’s face crumpled and he pulled her hand into his. “Please, Nat. You danced for almost three hours yesterday to wash it away and I can still see it in your eyes. It’s eating you up. You need to take a step back.”

“No. I need a mission.” She gave his hand a final squeeze, then pulled free and went directly to the elevator.

At nearly eight o’clock that night, she determined that she had what she wanted. She ran back over the data one more time, then powered down her StarkPad and went to the kitchen to heat up a cup of soup. “Jarvis?” she said.

“Yes, Ms. Romanoff?”

“I’d like to requisition a quinjet and armory access.”

“I will let Mr. Stark know, Ms. Romanoff.”

She curled up on a barstool in the kitchen with her tomato soup close by and a bottle of vodka closer. She took a long pull on it as Jarvis said, “Mr. Stark is on his way.”

For a moment, she shut her eyes and reveled in the burn of the alcohol trickling down her throat. It wasn’t easy for her to get drunk, but there were still parts of the ride that she enjoyed. “Good. I’m expecting him.”

A minute later, the elevator doors hummed open and Tony was entering the room, looking more than a little irritated. “Red. I hear you’re after my stuff already.”

“Tony.” She raised the vodka in his direction and he made a face, shaking his head. He did sit at a stool nearby, though, and tilt his head at her. She took a pull of the vodka without taking her eyes off him.

“Cap says you’re chasing traffickers. Is that what this is about?”

“Maybe. Want to come? It’s more of a soft touch operation, not really your style, but it’ll be fun.”

Tony raised an eyebrow at her. “I don’t do subtle. Neither does Cap and I know he’ll want to come along. How do you plan to handle that?”

She shrugged, giving him her unperturbed look. “I can handle Rogers.”

“See, that’s what I’m afraid of,” Tony said, narrowing his eyes and pointing at her. “I think you’re going to pull your spy whammy on him and ditch him god-knows-where.”

“I wouldn’t do that to him,” she said, giving Tony the dark look that he deserved.

Tony tipped his head the other way. “No, but you’d go off the map and leave him sitting at the quinjet with no way to find you.” She opened her mouth to argue, but he held up a hand. “Ah, ah, ah! Don’t pull your spy whammy on _me_, I know I’m right. Do you know how hard Steve’s been working to find you? He’s barely slept since whatever the hell happened in D.C., which I’m still pissed about, by the way. Iron Man would’ve been happy to kick some Hydra ass. But no, that’s whatever, I know you play your cards close to the chest, can’t trust anybody, work alone, all that crap. Fine, whatever. But you do know he’s in love with you, right?”

Those words felt like a knife in the heart. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah. He’s got it so bad for you, Red, it’s ridiculous,” Tony said seriously. “Normally, that’s something I’d keep to myself, but I think he’d be cool with me telling you if it meant you didn’t disappear into some hellhole again.”

_Love is for children_. Her chest felt like it was caving in. Emotion made you weak. _Love_ made you weak. It was one thing to relax with Steve, to let him take care of her a bit, to have something good for once. But she had to accept that it was a temporary thing. It wasn’t something she’d be able to keep. She wasn’t about to take life advice from Tony Stark of all people. “He’s not in love with me and if he is, he doesn’t know me very well. Maybe he should read my file.”

Tony narrowed his eyes at her again. “He _is_ in love with you and he _has_ read your file. It’s nothing you need to run from, Red. Not everything good is a threat.”

“Love is for children.”

“See, I’ve heard you say that before and do you know what I hear? The Red Room.”

She got up from the barstool sharply and turned away from him, taking the vodka with her to the big windows to look out at the city lights. “Don’t go there, Tony.”

“Why not? Cap’s read your SHIELD file, and that’s enough to know how dirty your hands are, which is what you’re worried about. I read the rest of it that you released to the web a few weeks ago. I read your debriefings when SHIELD brought you in, your psych evals, all of it.” He paused a moment, then pushed the envelope just a bit farther. “You know, if I’d known how messed up you were, I’d have taken greater offense to your assessment of me as an Avengers candidate.”

She spun on him then, fire in her eyes. “Don’t piss me off, Tony.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you angry. I touched a nerve there, didn’t I?”

“My psych evals are none of your business.”

“You kind of made them everybody’s business. And if you want to pretend that you’re a well-adjusted human being, take a walk downstairs and talk to the Terminator. He is not well-adjusted at all, but you don’t see him running from Steve.”

“He came in because I told him to. If I hadn’t been there, he’d have bolted again and Steve would still be chasing ghosts. If you put him on a quinjet, you can bet you won’t get him back.”

Tony smirked. “You totally deflected there. You totally didn’t address the fact that you’re running from Steve.”

“I am not running from Steve,” she said coldly, locking down her emotions. Emotions made you weak. Sloppy. “I have work to do. That’s all. I told him I’d play by his rules and that’s what I plan to do.”

“I don’t suppose his rules explicitly forbade you from running off.”

“I have work to do.”

Tony stood up then to face off with her, his face suddenly dead serious. “He told me what that last group did to you. I bet that’s only the tip of the iceberg, isn’t it? You told him that much in a rare moment of vulnerability but you kept the worst to yourself. You’re not just bringing down the bad guys. You’re punishing yourself. Wiping out some of that red in your ledger by adding some blood of your own.”

“I am not punishing myself. I don’t operate that way and you should know that from my psych evals. This is what I was trained to do, the way I was trained to take down marks. I was to infiltrate by letting them underestimate me, then dismantle them from within, kill them when they’re most vulnerable. If that meant I took a few hits, so be it.”

“But it’s not just hits, is it?” he asked. When she didn’t respond, just hardened her jaw as a warning, he softened and looked down at his hands. “You don’t have to talk to me about it, Red. That’s fine, have your space. But don’t do this to yourself anymore. If you don’t care enough about yourself to stop, then at least care about Steve enough to realize what it would do to him to see you at your lowest.”

She refused to react to that. _Love is for children._ She could not let this get in the way of the mission. Those women, those children, were too important. Finally, she said, “I’m not getting that quinjet, am I?”

Tony sighed deeply, sadly, then looked her in the eye again. What he saw there must have been the nail in the coffin because he turned and made his way back to the elevator, calling over his shoulder, “Nope.”

She watched him until the elevator doors shut, then she allowed her insides to boil over, grimacing in a vain attempt to hold in the pain and frustration. She threw the half-full vodka bottle, smashing it against the far wall and sending glass and alcohol everywhere. Then, she stormed to the freezer to grab a fresh bottle, opening it on her way to her studio. She slammed that doors behind her, took a long pull of the vodka, and began to strip down to her bra and panties. “Jarvis?”

“Ms. Romanoff?” Even Jarvis sounded worried about her, damn it all.

“Lock down my floor. Steve and Tony don’t get in until I say so.”

“As you wish, Ms. Romanoff.”

“And play my In This Moment playlist.”

The metal song began to echo around her and she left the lights off, letting only the glow of the city lights through the narrow windows guide her. She tipped back the bottle of vodka, drank deeply until the burn nearly choked her, then spun back and began to dance hard and fast, pushing herself to her limit, up on toe without her pointe shoes, just raw and loose.

_“Love me 'til you're dead, I will not forget. You'll still love me dead or alive. Dead or alive, dead or alive. Love me 'til you're dead, this is what you get. You'll still love me, dead or alive. Dead or alive, dead or alive.”_

\----------------

By the next morning, it was obvious that Steve was agitated and growing increasingly more so. He was haunting the floor, then dragging him to the gym to beat on the punching bags, then back to the floor to pace and drink too much coffee. Every hour or so he’d ask Jarvis about Romanoff and every time, Jarvis would answer, “Her floor is still locked, Captain Rogers.”

When Steve finally disappeared to the gym again, leaving him alone on the floor this time, he sat on the couch thinking. He didn’t really know Romanoff, but he knew the intel on her, knew about Odessa and D.C., knew what Steve had told him. He knew she was a Black Widow, built by the Red Room to infiltrate, seduce, and kill. He knew she was the best of them, the only one alive now. The rest had been too weak or too sloppy. If they graduated, they died within a decade or so, pushed beyond their limit until they made mistakes and got killed or, in some cases, killed themselves. Not her. Natalia Alianova Romanova did not make mistakes and she did not self-destruct.

Which meant that she’d been through decades of hell, just like him.

She’d been built during the Cold War, given the same bastard serum he’d been given, trained by the Red Room to be the best. He didn’t remember knowing her, but he knew these facts to be true because they were in the intel he’d been given. She’d tortured, killed, collected and divulged information to the ruin of entire governments. She’d sold her body and her soul to accomplish these things.

And she knew it.

After a long time, he made his decision and stood. “Jarvis?”

“Yes, Sergeant Barnes?”

“Is Romanoff’s floor locked against me?”

“I am glad you asked that, Sergeant Barnes. She was quite clear that she wanted her floor locked and neither Mr. Stark nor Captain Rogers to disturb her. I interpreted that as instruction to lock her floor against them.”

“I thought I didn’t have access to the other living quarters.”

“If I may make a suggestion, Sergeant Barnes, I could ask Mr. Stark to lift that obstacle.”

This AI was a hell of a lot smarter than any other he’d encountered. He nodded in appreciation. “Please do so.”

“As you wish, sir.”

There was a moment’s pause and he paced the floor slowly while he waited. He was on his second pass around the perimeter when the elevator doors slid open and Jarvis spoke. “Mr. Stark asks that you tell Ms. Romanoff that he is sorry.”

“I will, Jarvis. Thank you.”

He got into the elevator, feeling a bit less disturbed by the AI, and the elevator ascended. He counted the floors between them (six) and the elevator eased to a stop. As soon as the doors opened, he was assaulted by a punishing blast of metal music.

_“I can be your whore. I am the dirt you created. I am your sinner and your whore. But let me tell you something baby, you love me for everything you hate me for.”_

His muscles hardened, disturbed by the music and its cruel message, knowing that Romanoff didn’t do anything without deliberation. He followed the music through the red and chrome floor, stepping through broken glass on the way to a set of double doors. He hesitated a moment, then pushed one open.

It was a dance studio. In that instant, he was transported, hearing Tchaikovsky, watching girls in white leotards twirl slowly in perfect unison, rising up on pointe, then descending and stretching outward once more.

Then, he was back in the here and now.

The studio was dimly lit by the ambient light coming through the windows. An empty bottle of vodka lay forgotten not far from his feet and, a few steps beyond that, a pile of clothes. The floor was marked by bloody footprints and there, in the middle of the dance floor, spinning backwards in a warrior’s pose, then leaping forward and throwing her head down, then back again to the music, was Romanoff. She was in matching black panties and a sports bra, nothing else. Her feet were bloody, yet she continued to rise up on her toes between each lunge, on each spin, her pointe shoes somewhere well beyond her mind. In here, the music was so loud he could hardly think and he could feel a massive headache coming on, but she just moved with it, a part of it.

And she wasn’t Romanoff. He realized then that he knew her, though he didn’t know how. She was Natalia.

“Fucking hell,” he groaned to himself, rubbing one temple as he kicked the vodka bottle out of the way and started forward. Of course, he would get this tiny shard of barely even a memory now when she was in pieces, when she would likely flinch away from him as worse than a stranger, as the man who’d tried to kill her several times. “Fucking hell,” he repeated to himself. Then, he took a deep breath to steel himself, dropped his hand, and walked with purpose across the studio.

Natalia either didn’t notice or ignored his approach, continuing to dance. He tried not to think about how long she must have been like this, but he and Steve hadn’t seen her since yesterday afternoon, almost twenty-four hours ago. She spun out away from him and he lunged forward, grabbing her hand and spinning her back until she slammed into his chest, her hand on his left shoulder, her hair wild around her face as he held her. That instant felt strange and electric. Then, as soon as she lost her momentum, her muscles turned to water and he was entirely holding her up. “Barnes,” she gasped, gripping his shoulders to stay upright. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Steve was very worried and it occurred to Jarvis and I that you did not lock your floor against me.” Without letting her stumble, he bent to sweep one arm behind her knees and scooped her up. She weighed next to nothing, all muscle in a five-foot three frame. “Jarvis? Kill the music, please?”

“Yes, sir.”

The music faded, then cut out. Natalia looped her arms more securely around his neck as he carried her from the studio towards where the bathroom would be if it mirrored his floor. It did.

“What the hell are you doing, Barnes?”

“Your feet need to be cleaned and bandaged.” He set her on the counter in the bathroom and bent to check her feet. They were a bloody mess, four of her toenails badly broken and two toes clearly out of joint. “Fuck, Natalia. Where’s your first aid kit?”

“What did you just call me?” she asked, her voice hard as stone.

“I knew you, didn’t I? Before Odessa?” He rifled through her cupboards and drawers until he found the first aid kit and popped it open. “I know I knew you, but I don’t remember it.” Natalia glared darkly at him and didn’t answer the question, but didn’t stop him from wiping the blood from her feet, bandaging the broken toenails, and then popping the dislocated toes back into place. She didn’t even wince. He then began to wrap her toes together up to the arch of her foot. “You’re going to hate this, but don’t take it off until those dislocated ones stop hurting.”

“They’ll be healed by tonight. But I expect you know that, don’t you?”

He stared her in the eyes. Green eyes, bright as emeralds. You’d think he’d remember those. “They’ll heal even faster if you leave the tape on and they’ll heal in the right place.” She glared at him again. He could smell the vodka on her, probably draining out through her pores as she sweated from all that dancing. “How long were you dancing?”

“I don’t know. What time is it?”

He folded his arms. “It’s past noon. Steve hasn’t seen you since this time yesterday. How long were you dancing? Did you sleep?”

“Who the hell do you think you are to come in here and ask me shit like that?” she growled. “Get out.”

He nodded slowly, his blood beginning to warm and not because she was nearly naked. “Okay. So, you haven’t slept and you’ve consumed nothing but vodka. Excellent. Stark says he’s sorry, by the way. I expect you’ve been dancing since you argued with him? When was that? Last night?”

“Fuck off, Barnes.”

“I’m not Barnes to you, though, am I?” he said, frowning deeply. “You would have known me as _soldat._”

She glared hatefully at him. “_Otvali, soldat._”

“Nice. Fine, don’t tell me, but I’m going to tell Steve about your current state.”

“I could kill you a hundred different ways right now.”

He nodded, narrowing his eyes at her. There was definitely something he was missing here. Why was she so angry at him? “I expect you could, but I could do the same to you if I actually wanted to. You’re trained not to be this angry at me. Are you still drunk?”

Suddenly, she folded in half and locked her knees around his head. He got his metal hand up in time to grip her inner leg and keep her from breaking his neck, but she jerked around and brought him to the floor beneath her. His head smacked on the tile and he saw stars, but he didn’t release his grip on her thigh. She now had both thighs around his head and he pushed past what might be a concussion immediately, rolling them over so she had her back to the floor and his human arm was across her throat. She gave no indication to the fact that he was choking her, just tried harder to break his neck with the added bonus of punching him in the face. Finally, he released her throat in favor of catching both hands and pinning them above her head. With his bionic arm occupied, she was surprisingly strong and fought him tooth and nail. “Come on, Natalia,” he gasped. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “I wouldn’t stress about it.” Then, she launched him over her head and into the bedroom. He managed to land in a roll, but she knocked his legs out from under him before he could turn on her, then she had him facefirst on the carpet with his bionic arm bent at a crazy angle behind his back. She’d somehow acquired a garrote she was using to hold it in place and he struggled against it. It must have been some custom tech because it was strong as all hell. He gave up on it and kicked upwards, slamming his boot into her back hard enough to knock the wind out of her and loosen her grip. Then he was rolling, first to face her, then to roll on top of her, her powerful legs wrapped around his waist now instead of his head. She punched him in the throat, then shoved him with all her might off of her, but he caught her shoulders and managed to hold onto her. She slapped him hard enough to nearly snap his neck and he took the moment to grab her wrist in his metal hand, careful to lock it down without crushing it. He pressed her down into the floor and blocked strike after strike from her free arm. When he caught that one in his human hand, she got in a strike to his kidney with her heel that was guaranteed to leave a mark, possibly a bit of internal bleeding before he healed. “Damn it, Natalia,” he groaned. Then, he rolled to pin one of her legs underneath him. The other bent upwards at an absurd angle to aim a kick at his head, but by then he’d gotten both her wrists into his bionic hand and had a free arm to block the blow. It still hurt like hell, but at least it wasn’t another concussion. He hooked his arm around her leg and locked it against him, pressing it down against her body. She struggled under him and he held his head back to avoid a connection between her forehead and his nose. “Natalia, enough,” he groaned. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

“You couldn’t hurt me if you tried, _soldat._”

He sighed, then knocked his head against hers, causing her to hiss in pain and loll her head to the side. Sickness immediately entered his body and he bent his head to kiss her cheek. “Please,” he murmured against her skin. “Enough.”

She shuddered and he thought he’d crossed a line, but when she met his gaze, there were the beginnings of tears in her emerald eyes. The fight drained out of her and she lay immobile under him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry…I don’t know what came over me.”

For half a moment, he bought it. Then the illness came back and he glared at her. “Don’t you dare try to trick me. You’re a Black Widow. I know better than to fall for that shit.”

She hissed in frustration and nailed him in the nose with her forehead. He shouted in pain as his nose broke and blood dripped onto her face. “Thanks for that,” he growled. “Now, I’m pissed.” He tightened his grip on her wrists and brought them down between their faces, very nearly popping her shoulders out of place. To her credit, she didn’t react to the strain, just fought to out-muscle his metal arm. “Yield.”

“No.”

“Yield, damn it!”

She let out a string of swear words in Russian, insulting him in ways he only just barely understood. He forced her hands down to her chest, bending her arms and wrists at an increasingly awkward angle until she finally grimaced in pain. “Yield or I will knock you out cold!”

“I don’t yield,” she snarled at him. “I am marble.”

Those words brought him back to the dance studio again, to watching the ballerinas twirl. The floor was stained with blood seeping right through their pointe shoes and Madame B pointed out to him the girl with the flaming red hair drawn tight into a bun at the base of her skull. “That one,” Madame B said. “That one is made of marble. A true Black Widow.”

“Get out of there,” he said to her fiercely. “You’re not back there, you’re never going back there. Whatever Stark said was bullshit. That’s not who you are anymore.”

“You know nothing, _soldat_!”

“I know exactly what’s in your head!” he snapped. “It’s the same fucking thing that’s in my head! Don’t you see that? They scraped out everything that made you you and put in things that they wanted you to be. They broke you and let you heal in ways that made you unrecognizable. Maybe they literally broke you over and over again like they did with me. Maybe they made you break yourself, trying to prove something, trying to _make_ yourself marble. Maybe you broke yourself so many times that you don’t remember what it’s like to be whole. Tell me I’m wrong.”

She stared up at him, her face like stone. “Don’t pretend you know me.”

“But I do know you, don’t I? Do you remember? I want to remember.”

Tears sparked her eyes and these ones he believed. “I don’t remember,” she admitted, “Which means it matters. They only took the things that mattered.”

So this was why she’d lashed out. She was in pain. His heart wrenched and he bent his head to press his forehead against hers, shutting his eyes. “I want to remember, even if it hurts. I have to know.”

“Fine,” she said, and he could hear her swallow. “Have it your way. We’ll try to remember.”

“Good. Now, yield.”

She hissed, but let her muscles fall slack. “Fine. I yield.”

He released her immediately, letting her hands drop to her sides, her leg drop to the floor. He eased off of the leg he’d pinned under him and knelt between her knees, staring down at her. She was panting, her hair in a tumble around her face, sweat slicking her fair skin. She was very nearly naked, every muscle, every scar on display. There was a particularly nasty one on her lower abdomen, right where he’d shot her outside Odessa and he wanted to kiss it. She was so damn beautiful and he realized that he wanted her, wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything in his memory, wanted her more than he wanted his memory itself. He wanted to kiss her, wanted to please her, wanted to make her scream and then fuck her until she screamed again. And, he realized with amazement, he knew exactly how he wanted to do it.

But she was Steve’s girl.

He snapped his eyes away from hers and struggled to his feet, reaching down to help her upright and then lift her so she was sitting on the edge of the bed. “Unlock your floor,” he said hoarsely. “Let me send Steve to take care of you.”

Natalia frowned deeply, her eyes boring into him even as he fought not to look at her, as he called up odd memories of what he realized were baseball stats trying to cool down his adrenaline-filled body, trying to cool down his hardening cock. “Barnes,” she said softly. “_Soldat._ That’s not what you want, is it?”

He swallowed hard, trying to bottle it all up. “No, it’s not, but I want Steve to be happy and he’s happy with you. And you clearly need someone right now and that someone can’t be me.”

There was a moment of quiet, then she said, “I don’t want Steve to see me like this. He…wouldn’t understand.”

He met her eyes then and stared at her. “What do _you_ want, Natalia?”

For a long time, she just stared back at him, her face clear, her eyes dead-serious. Then she said, “I want you to walk out and leave me here alone. Steve doesn’t have to know about any of this. I’ll be fine.”

He shook his head slowly, studying her. This was the façade she put on when she was shutting people out. “Not an option. I wouldn’t leave someone I care about alone like this and I wouldn’t leave Steve’s girl alone like this. Let me bring him here.”

“No.” She raised her eyebrows in a challenge. “You don’t have authority here, this is my floor. You can’t call anyone, you can’t unlock the doors. All you can do is leave.”

He gritted his teeth. This woman was as stubborn as he was. “That’s not all I can do.”

He picked her up again as she fought to wriggle out of his arms. He carried her back into the bathroom, set her on the edge of the tub, and started the water. “What the hell are you doing?” she hissed at him.

“I’m putting you in a bath. You smell like sweat and vodka and probably feel worse than you smell,” he said bluntly. As the water rose and began to steam, he looked around and spotted a half-empty bottle of bath salts and poured a healthy amount into the water. “You’d probably get much more gentle treatment from Steve, but since you’re being difficult, you get me.” With that, he picked her up and dumped her into the tub, bra, panties and all. She cried out, but sank shoulder-deep into the water and immediately began to melt. He crossed his arms and stared down at her, thinking she looked like fucking heaven but that he wasn’t going to touch her. She glared at him and raised her middle finger, which was enough to make him almost smile.

He set his broken nose and babysat her while she washed and soaked, then helped her towel off, put dry bandages on her feet, and dumped her in her bed. She protested again at being manhandled, but between dancing and fighting, she was physically spent and in no shape to actually threaten him. Instead, he pulled the covers over her and sat on the edge of the bed on top of them. “I’m staying until you either fall asleep or let me call Steve,” he informed her. “At the least, you should have Jarvis tell him you’re okay, you just don’t want to see anyone yet.”

She shut her eyes in defeat, then took the suggestion and asked Jarvis to relay the message. Then she looked at him again and said, “Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” he said drily. Then, he twisted to lay on the bed beside her, staring up at her ceiling.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

He shrugged. “Well, not that long ago you had my face between your thighs. I think I can lay on your bed.”

She snorted, but said nothing, just shifted to get more comfortable. When he sensed that she’d closed her eyes and started to drift, he looked over and watched her fall asleep. Even in sleep, she looked troubled.

He watched her for a while, then slipped out and went to the elevator. Inside, he asked Jarvis, “Jarvis? Where’s Steve?”

“Captain Rogers is on his floor, Sergeant Barnes.”

“Thank you. Please take me there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The two songs Natasha dances to in this chapter are "Black Widow" and "Whore" by In This Moment. They're a pretty awesome band that I adore and I think these songs and others by them scream Natasha, especially at this point in her arc.
> 
> I questioned myself on the ending to this chapter, but I decided it was important to do it this way. There will be plenty more of Bucky/Nat, Steve/Nat, and sexy fight scenes.


	7. Can't Let Go Of This

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your Kudos and kind words! They mean the world. 
> 
> I was asked in a comment whether this is a Bucky/Nat story or a Steve/Nat story and the answer is that it's both and it's also a Stucky story and, eventually, a three-way. This chapter is a lot of Bucky/Nat, but Steve is going to figure very strongly in the next chapter to balance that back out. So, if you're a fan of one of those pairings but not the others, please consider sticking around to see your pairing play out over the course of this story and maybe find that one of the other pairings is appealing too.
> 
> Comments much loved and appreciated! <3

Steve was sulking on the couch not watching the baseball game currently playing when the elevator doors opened and Bucky emerged. His face had dried blood on it and bruises were rising on every bit of skin he was showing. Steve shot up from the couch. “Buck! What the hell happened?”

“I dragged your girlfriend out of her dance studio,” Bucky said drily, heading for the kitchen. Steve trailed him and watched him retrieve the vodka from the freezer and pour a liberal dose. “Jarvis was smart enough to only lock her floor against you and Stark, so I got access and went up there to deal with her.”

_Deal with her._ Christ. At least someone had managed to get through to her. “Is she okay? How bad was it?”

Bucky drained his vodka without a flinch and poured some more. “She’s lucky she didn’t break any toes. She was dancing without her shoes for God knows how long, bloodied herself up pretty bad. And then we pissed each other off and she tried to kill me. As you can see, she did not succeed, but not for lack of trying.” He took another long drink of vodka, then added, “Don’t worry, I didn’t hurt her.”

Steve exhaled and his shoulders sank even as his organs settled into each other. “Jesus. She said she didn’t want to see anyone. Is she going to be okay?”

“She’ll be okay eventually…she’s asleep now. She told me she didn’t want you to see her like that because she was worried you wouldn’t understand.”

That about crushed him. He felt his face crumple and he looked up to Bucky as his friend poured a third glass of vodka. “How can she think that?”

Bucky eyed him guardedly, then took a sip of vodka and said, “Steve, she’s been in some really dark places. She’s done horrible things and blames herself for them. You don’t have that kind of baggage. You’ve always been the good guy. I get that you’re in love with her, but you can’t exactly blame her for being intimidated.”

Steve hung his head. God, this was messed up. Poor Nat. “I would never want her to feel that way. We’ve talked about some of that stuff, but she keeps everything so close to the chest.” A hopeful thought occurred to him and his eyes shot up to Bucky. “Did she talk to you?”

Bucky visibly winced and finished his third glass of vodka. “Sort of. Not nicely. She and I have a lot in common…including how bad we are at talking about things.”

That was true. Bucky had been very forthcoming and easy to talk to before the war, but that had changed long before he’d been the Winter Soldier. The war had changed so much about him, had amplified some of his traits and smothered others. And now that he had the Winter Soldier’s baggage alongside his own? Yeah, it made sense that he wasn’t feeling up to talking. In fact, he probably remembered more than he was letting on and just didn’t want to talk about it. And Natasha was the queen of hiding her feelings, though he knew that the one thing she felt above all else was guilt.

So, what if they talked to each other? If the two people he loved the most could help each other, that would be a godsend. Obviously, Steve wanted to help them, but if he couldn’t…. “What if you tried to talk about things together?”

Bucky gave him a wary look. “I don’t know, Steve….”

“Come on. If you could help each other, even just a little bit…”

Bucky gave him a look that shut down the words. “It’s really not a good idea, Steve. She and I knew each other…before. They wiped it from both our memories, but we know we knew each other.”

He felt like he’d been slapped. _Both our memories._ “Natasha was wiped?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t uncommon in the Red Room.”

Steve shuddered at the thought. He’d seen images and descriptions of the mental recalibration chair in Bucky’s file and now he was picturing Natasha in it, imagining her strapped down, thrashing against the restraints as they ripped her memories from her. “Jesus.” He choked on the image for a heavy moment, then looked up at Bucky again, forcing out more words. “Isn’t it good that you knew each other, though? Maybe you could help each other get some of those memories back.”

Bucky shut his eyes. “Steve…it’s not a good idea. If things were different, I’d be all over it, trust me. But she’s your girl and I…” he took a deep breath and opened his steel-blue eyes to hold Steve’s gaze. “Steve, I want her.”

He blinked in surprise, suddenly remembering the flirting way Bucky had spoken to Nat yesterday. In retrospect, it made perfect sense. Bucky and Nat had so much in common and Bucky had always admired strong, sexy women. He’d wanted Peggy once but deferred to Steve. And here he was deferring to him again. But…was that all? “Do you think you were…together before?”

Bucky shut his eyes and began to rub his right temple. “Fuck, I don’t know. There’s this woman that I’ve been dreaming about, but I never get a decent look at her. It’s always dark. I know that I know Natalia and I know that I want her now. But she’s your girl and that means I’m not going to risk fucking shit up for you.”

Steve softened, touched that Bucky, who still barely remembered their friendship, felt that strongly about not risking getting involved with ‘Steve’s girl,’ even after he’d told Bucky that it was still pretty new. He and Nat hadn’t been on a date, hadn’t slept together, hadn’t formally told anyone they were together, but Bucky cared anyway. And if Bucky and Nat had been lovers once, had been _happy_ together once, who was Steve to deny them that? “Buck,” he said softly, “It doesn’t have to be like that. I love you both, I want you both to be safe and happy. I want you to remember your good memories, _all _of them. And if that means things get complicated, fine. We’ll deal with it. But you deserve to know.”

Bucky was staring at the vodka bottle shaking his head. “I don’t know…I really don’t…”

“I do,” Steve cut in. “I don’t want to lose her, I love her, but what if you loved her first?” Bucky met his gaze then, his brow creased to hide his emotions as they tried to seep through. “I think all three of us deserve to know what was between you and whether it could come back.”

He watched Bucky as he hesitated for ages, his steel-blue eyes darting about, his hands clenching and unclenching on the edge of the countertop. Finally, he mumbled, “And what if there was something between us? What if I did love her? What then?”

The thought sent a spear of jealousy right into Steve’s chest, but he couldn’t say if it was at the thought of losing Nat to Bucky, losing Bucky to Nat, or just them being happy without him. The fact that he didn’t know was strange and unnerving, but he’d loved Bucky for so long and just now gotten him back and he’d admired and feared Natasha for so long and she’d just now let him in. It made sense for his feelings to be both strong and confusing. “I don’t want to lose either of you. I want to be happy, but I can only be happy if both of you are. I wouldn’t let it come between us.”

Bucky’s eyebrows rose right up to where his hair lay across his forehead. “Steve. I don’t want this to come between us either. I want this to work, I want us to be friends again, the way I sometimes remember.”

“Good,” Steve said, standing up and moving around the counter to face Bucky. He held out his hand. “Then we’re in agreement. However this shakes out, we’ll be friends and we’ll be happy. To the end of the line.”

Bucky looked down at his hand, then clasped it firmly with his right. His hand was warm and rough with callouses and something inside Steve warmed at the contact. “To the end of the line.”

\----------------

Natasha woke with every muscle and every bone aching. She was surprised to be in bed and not passed out on the floor of her studio, as had happened before, but as she mentally assessed her injuries, she began to remember. Barnes had stopped her from dancing, had bandaged her feet. They’d fought, rather brutally, and he’d won without hurting her. She’d done most of the damage to herself by laying blows on him. He’d thrown her in the tub, then back in bed, made her ask Jarvis to tell Steve she was alive. 

They’d realized they’d known each other.

She couldn’t help groaning. This was going to make such a fucking mess of things. She’d gotten too emotional and been sloppy. She’d nearly killed him, had tried very hard to kill him, over virtually nothing. He’d invaded her space. That was all. And her space had never been particularly valuable to anyone but her.

She realized she was still in her slightly damp bra and panties and groaned again. Slowly, tentatively, she sat up in bed and turned towards the side of the bed, easing her feet to the floor. They were bandaged, but still hurt like hell. Those toenails would take time to grow out. She set her feet on the hardwood floor, put just enough pressure on her toes to test the waters, and hissed in pain.

Warm fingers brushed hers.

She jumped like she’d been electrocuted and spun, lashing out with an arm that was immediately caught mid-strike and pulled away from her, dragging her off balance and into James Buchanan Barnes’s lap. He wore a bemused expression as he pinned her gently down against his legs and said, “Easy. I was just going to offer to help.”

“You’re not supposed to still be here,” she said darkly, thoroughly annoyed at his having surprised her.

“I left, like you asked, but you never actually locked your floor against me, so Steve sent me back. Unfortunately for you.” She hissed in frustration and he let her sit up, facing away from him. “Stark says he’s sorry again, by the way. He didn’t tell me what exactly about, but he said you tried to get him to lend you a quinjet and he said no.”

“Yeah, well, Tony’s pretty attached to his toys,” she said drily.

“I think he’s more attached to you,” Barnes observed. “I think he thought if he put you on a quinjet you wouldn’t come back.”

She looked over her shoulder at him, at his clear face. It was a similar face to the one she used when she didn’t want people to know what she was thinking. She raised an eyebrow at him. “Yeah? And what about you? If Tony put you on a quinjet to go burn down a Hydra base, would you come back?”

He shrugged. “Eventually. If I didn’t feel too guilty about it, at least. It’s hard to feel good enough when you’re standing next to Captain America.”

She snorted. “Tell me about it.”

“I’m starting to remember things…from the war.” She frowned and studied his face. He was staring at the far wall now, his steel-blue eyes far away. “I did some pretty awful things then too. Steve didn’t, not really. But that was because we didn’t let him. I didn’t let him. I would go off and do the dirty work by myself or with one of the other guys, never with Steve. He should’ve court-martialed me. I was always doing shit without his consent or after he’d forbade it. But he knew why I was doing it.”

“Why did you do it?”

“To protect him. I didn’t want that blood on his hands.” Barnes frowned deeply, his brow creasing as dark memories began to move to the forefront. “I remember…I remember sneaking into guardhouses and slitting the throats of sleeping men. I remember shooting victims of torture and experimentation in the head to put them out of their misery before Steve saw them. I remember shooting half a hundred guys before they could get close to Steve, remember seeing them through my scope, sometimes they didn’t even have their rifles up yet, but I knew what they’d do when they saw him so I blew their brains out. I think I’d always protected him, so when we were at war, I kept doing it, just in different ways.”

Natasha’s frown deepened as she listened to the disturbing story. When he’d finished and was still staring at the wall, lost in his thoughts, she turned to face him, crossing her legs on the bed. “Barnes,” she said, breaking through to him. He looked to her then, his eyes still foggy. “I would have done the same damn thing. You know that.”

He chuckled once humorlessly. “Yeah…you and I have a lot in common, don’t we?”

She nodded slowly, still stunned by the story and by the fact that he’d told it to her. She’d done nothing to earn his trust, nothing. “Yeah, I think we do. Why did Steve send you back here?”

“He didn’t want you to be alone. And he thought we should talk. See, I told him that we remembered each other from before and he thought we should try to remember that and maybe on the way have a little therapy session.”

She snorted. “Is that really necessary?”

Barnes shrugged, his eyes clearing. “You tell me. I’m not the one who spent the whole night dancing, trying to break my toes.”

“I was not trying to break my toes.”

He frowned suddenly. “Maybe not. But you have broken your toes before.”

She blinked in surprise, memories of dancing in the Red Room coming back, memories of getting lost in the music so she wouldn’t feel all those eyes on her, waiting for her to fail. “Yes. They would make us dance until we collapsed. We were expected to keep going even if we broke our toes. When they would ask this of us, the first girl to collapse would never come back.”

His frown deepened. “But you never collapsed.”

“No,” she said. “I never did. Afterward, I would be a mess, of course, but if I kept dancing, I could go forever. I would let myself get totally lost in the music, make myself a part of it. The music keeps going and I keep going and neither of us stop.”

As she watched, his expression shifted and his eyes moved to study her hands, her arms, her face, like he was imagining the way she moved when she danced. Had he seen her dance before? Or had it only been that morning when he’d broken into her studio? “We’ve danced together before, I think,” he said. “Now I think about it, stopping you on the dance floor, reeling you in like that, it felt…well, it felt natural.”

It had felt natural. She’d felt it then, had felt it as her hands came to rest on his shoulders like they belonged there, had felt it as she started to sag, knowing he’d break her fall. She’d never _naturally _danced with anyone in her memory. It was always calculated. “I think you’re right.” She thought of Steve then and her gut twisted. Steve, who adored her, Steve, who Tony claimed loved her. “Did Steve…did he really think this through? What if you and I were…together?”

Barnes swallowed hard. “He and I talked about it. He doesn’t want to lose you, but he says we all deserve to know what was there.” That sounded like Steve. And she didn’t want to lose Steve either, very much didn’t want to lose him, but she loved that he cared about her enough and respected her enough to give her this chance to uncover her memories. Barnes looked down at his hands for a moment, then his eyes cleared. “You were getting up. Did you need something?”

“A trip to the bathroom and dry clothes.”

He rolled out of bed to his feet and offered his hand to her. She accepted it and let him help her to her feet, wincing at the pressure on her toes. “You okay?” he asked softly.

“Fine.” She locked everything down and he released her hand, letting her walk to the bathroom alone and lock the door behind her. She used the toilet, then washed her hands and face. Her hair was in insane curls from airdrying after her bath and she brushed it to at least get the tangles out. The curls would be staying until she next washed her hair. Then, she brushed her teeth to ward off the lingering taste of vodka, and applied her favorite fragrance because it made her feel more in control.

That done, she left the bathroom and found Barnes leaning against the frame of her closet door. A pair of jeans, a zip-up sweater, and a black tank-top waiting on the bed. “I didn’t go through your underwear drawer,” he said drily. “Even I know there are some boundaries a man doesn’t cross.”

She raised an eyebrow at him and crossed the room to her dresser. “Admit it, you were just afraid of what you’d find in there.”

“A bit.” She opened her underwear drawer, pulled out the knife she had stashed there, and threw it at him, watching it flip end-over-end. He caught it between his metal fingers automatically and began examining it. “Nice. Custom?”

“Of course. And one of my favorites, so no stealing.” She left him to admire the knife as she fished out a black thong and a matching black bra. She had been so vulnerable around everyone since she got back, especially him, and she hated it. She was never like that, never. She wanted her power back and she knew one easy way to get it. And, besides, that way was the same easy way to find out if she’d had a relationship with Barnes. “So…how many girls have _you_ seen naked since 1945?”

“Not sure…” he said slowly, obviously distracted by watching her as, facing away from him, she peeled off her sports bra and dropped it to the floor. “I guess I’ll be able to say at least one.”

Her panties went next and she smirked a little bit as she kicked them off, feeling some of her power coming back to her. He may be able to manhandle her when her toes were busted up and when her muscles were weak from dancing, but in the bedroom? No. This was her domain. She shut the dresser drawer, having set her things on the bed, and turned to face him, totally naked. His lips were parted with want, his steel eyes burning, his hands in fists as if to keep himself in place. Her smirk turned into a wicked smile and she very slowly reached down to pick up her thong. “What’s the matter, Barnes? I was told you were a ladies’ man.”

He blinked and a gleam entered his eyes as he tilted his head forward. That look…those eyes…they felt so familiar. “I am, but you’re no lady, are you?”

Her smile widened. He was willing to play this game? She bent forward to step into her thong, never taking her eyes off him. “No, I suppose I’m not. I’m a Widow.”

Barnes raised an eyebrow at her, an act that made him look quite devilish. “Is that supposed to frighten me?”

“It should.” She pulled on her bra, clasping it behind her back and very deliberately pushing her breasts up to put them in the ideal place. His eyes watched her like a hawk. “The way I see it, you’ve bested me two out of three in your own arena, but what about in mine?”

“This is your arena?”

“Absolutely.” The pain in her toes was gone, utterly forgotten. She stalked slowly around the bed, watched him watch every sway of her hips. When she was arm’s length away, she locked eyes with him and whispered, “You say you never back down from a challenge. Think you can beat me here?”

Barnes very nearly smirked. She clocked the twitch at the corner of his mouth. It was a lovely mouth, too, one she had to admit she wanted a taste of. “I think this is one place I wouldn’t mind losing, Natalia.”

She closed the distance between him, running her hands down his arms, man and metal, then taking his hands and laying one on her hip, the other on her ribs just below her breast. Then, she slid her hands up his chest to his throat, twining one into his hair while the other wrapped around his neck, pressing his jaw upward with her thumb so his head leaned back against the wall. He didn’t take his eyes off hers and she leaned in and breathed on his throat, “Is that you forfeiting?”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Never, doll. Has Steve seen this side of you? ‘Cuz I love it.”

She tilted her head, refused to let the invocation of Steve’s name bother her. “He hasn’t. I’m not sure he’d like it.”

“You may be surprised. As you know, sex is all confidence. Every guy wants a dame who knows what she’s doing.”

She leaned in and drew a line up his throat with her tongue. His hands tightened on her, but didn’t move. “Every guy, huh Barnes?”

“Is that who I am to you? Barnes?”

That surprised her. She raised an eyebrow at him. “Who do you want to be to me? Not _soldat_?”

He thought about it for a minute, turning over the names in his head. “No. Not _soldat._ I never want to be that again. How about James?”

“I like James.” And she did. The name felt good rolling off her tongue, felt natural and real. And she liked his steel-blue eyes watching her every move, letting her take charge, eyes that were so familiar. “I think we’ve been here before.”

His eyes went molten. “I think so too.”

“So, where do we go from here, James?”

His hands began to move then, leaving searing lines where his fingertips had been across her skin. He pulled her flush against him and sighed, his chest expanding to press tight against her breasts before he exhaled. “Wherever you want…Natalia.”

And her name, curling off that tongue in that moment, was what told her she was right. It was him, the man she’d loved in her dreams, the man who’d pleasured her and protected her and told her he’d die before he lost her.

\----------------

Jesus fucking Christ, he had Natalia Romanova, Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow coming on to him, unleashing her skills on him. Were he a lesser man, he’d already be on his damn knees worshipping her. Even as it was, he was tempted, but he was smarter than that.

Natalia didn’t fall out of her clothes for anyone or for any reason. Somehow, he knew this, and she’d confirmed it herself. She viewed the bedroom as _her arena. _Either this was a power play, in which case he was not about to fall to his knees like a boy, or it was a test to see if they had any physical memories between them, in which case he was more than happy to experiment.

_“Steve…I’m not going to lay your girl.”_

_ “Well, obviously, I’d very much rather you didn’t,” Steve had said, cringing horribly. “But I brought you both here to find a way to make you happy. If this is it, then, yeah, that is going to really suck for my romantic life, but it is what it is.”_

_ “I’m still not going to lay your girl.”_

_ “She’s not technically my girl, Buck, and if she hears you call her that, she won’t be anyone’s girl.”_

Steve wanted them all to know what was between him and Natalia, and, if nothing else, Steve deserved to know that before moving forward with _his girl_. He still wasn’t going to lay her, but there were plenty of things he was beginning to realize he knew how to do that stopped short of that.

He lowered his lips to her hair, breathing in the scent of her as he kissed her scarlet curls. She smelled of raspberry, bergamot and incense and it was absolutely a scent he knew. He found himself taking breath after breath of it, reveling in the drunken feeling it gave him. He knew her perfume. How could that not mean something?

Her lips brushed his collarbone, her thumb tracing his jawline while the rest of her hand cradled his neck. He’d expected to be set off by her grabbing him by the neck like that, but it had only stirred increased desire. Maybe he liked a dominant girl in bed. The flashes of girls he remembered from his previous life had definitely not been dominant and everything he knew about the Soldier screamed that he needed his dominance, needed to be in control of something in his life, but for some reason he didn’t mind giving Natalia the control she was taking.

Her breath was warm on his chest and neck, her lips leaving feather-light kisses along his neckline, her fingertips trailing along the hem of his shirt, just teasing. Her skin was so damn soft under his hands, so smooth, like silk. He ran his hands over her slowly, the human one to feel her warmth and to memorize every narrow scar he found, the metal one to revel in the fact that she so obviously wasn’t afraid of him. His bionic fingers raised no goosebumps or shudders and she didn’t flinch when he tightened his grip on her.

_“This is your arena?”_

_ “Absolutely.”_

She lightly kicked the inside of his ankle and he automatically widened his stance. She straddled his leg and pressed herself against him, her hand running down his chest to his belt buckle, which she gripped and held him to her by. His hands dropped to her lovely ass, left exposed by the thong she wore. It was the most fucking perfect ass he’d ever seen or felt, of that he was certain. She had all the right muscles in all the right places. She smirked up at him as he gave her an experimental squeeze. “Find something you like?” she asked teasingly.

“I found all kinds of things I like,” he said, not even recognizing his voice. Was this the voice he’d used when he’d been with girls before? He didn’t know. He squeezed her a little tighter, pulling her against his thigh. “They’re all things that belong to you, doll. You willing to share them with me?”

Her smile widened. “There’s Bucky Barnes, ladies’ man of the Howling Commandoes.”

He snorted and ducked his head to kiss her temple, then her forehead. Was he blushing? “I’ll be honest with you, doll, there are a few pieces of him I’m glad to have back, but I’m just not Bucky. I’m just not.”

She softened, then, her hands moving to cradle his face so he looked at her. Her green eyes sparked with intelligence, understanding, kindness. “You don’t have to be. You are whoever you want to be, James.”

Something inside him suddenly felt raw, like an open wound. He shuddered and shut his eyes tight, holding together the parts of him that felt like they were breaking. “For seventy years, everyone’s been telling me who I’m supposed to be. Now I’m supposed to be Bucky again and pretend like the Soldier never happened.”

Her lips pressed against his jaw and he opened his eyes to look down at her. “Shh…” she murmured, kissing his chin then. “I go by Natasha now and not everyone knows who Natalia was, but she’s not gone. She’s always there, just like Natasha is always there and Natalie Rushman is always there, and Naomi Rancourt, and all the other women I’ve been. Sometimes, I feel like a complete mess, but I have things that anchor me, things that I’ve carried with me that are the best parts of my previous selves. I don’t plan on ever stopping dancing, or drinking Russian tea, or wearing my favorite perfume, or playing Assassin’s Creed. Those are the things that keep me grounded and keep me who I am.”

“What is Assassin’s Creed?”

“It’s a videogame you’re going to love.” She kissed the corner of his mouth, then, and whispered, “Tell me what you remember, _liubimyj._”

_Liubimyj_.

That name spoken by those lips against his skin.

It _was_ her.

Eyes wide, breath trapped inside his lungs, he stared down into her lovely eyes, eyes he _knew._ “I remember you. And you remember me, don’t you?”

She nodded slowly, the tiniest smile rising in her face. “I dream about you. Just little flashes. But I remember.”

He nodded. His eyes were beginning to burn. Were those tears? “I dream about you too. You always call me that. _Liubimyj_.”

“_Darling_,” she confirmed. “I suppose you didn’t have a name then and I wouldn’t have called the man I love the same thing his handlers did.”

Something inside him felt fit to burst, felt like it was breaking apart and only just held together. “You loved me.”

Natalia smiled gently and went up on her battered toes to whisper in his ear, “I still do, _liubimyj._”

“But I’m not him anymore,” he choked out.

“And I’m not her anymore. But we still have pieces of them…things to keep us grounded, right?”

“Yeah.” He breathed in deeply, drinking in her sharp perfume, her breath, her warmth. His eyes squeezed tight together and a single hot tear burst from the corner of his left eye. He took a shuddery exhale, then gathered her lovely face into his hands, opened his eyes, and whispered on her lips, “I love you.”

For a moment, she looked surprised, as if it was her reflex not to expect love. And he kissed her then, molding his mouth to hers so he could feel every bit of her, so he could remember the woman from his dreams and so he could get lost in the woman he held now. Natalia. Natasha. He ran his hands over her, memorizing the way she felt in his arms so they couldn’t rip her from him again, and he gathered her up and lifted her, letting her wrap her deadly legs around him so he could kiss her deeper and lose himself in her. She teased his lower lip with her tongue and he opened to her, their tongues dancing as they breathed each other in. He never wanted to let her go, never wanted to let this go.

“I want this,” he groaned against her lips. “I want you more than anything. I can’t let this go.”

“Then don’t.”

“But…Steve…you’re…he wants you too,” he said brokenly. “And I can’t take you from him.”

Natalia stilled in his arms and when the kiss broke, her eyes were staring into his, clear and unperturbed. “Well, then let’s go talk to him about that. I don’t want to hurt him any more than you do, but I’m not letting go either. Not now that I remember you.” She bit her lip and her eyes fell to her hand on his left shoulder. Gently, she stroked the scars where his arm was attached through his shirt. “No. I can’t let this go. And I can’t hurt Steve. I owe him.”

“Then we talk to Steve.”


	8. Where Does This Leave Us?

Steve sipped his bourbon silently and tried to ignore the fact that the sun was setting. Either Natasha was getting a lot of needed sleep or she and Bucky were having a long conversation.

_Or they were _not_ having a conversation._

He took a longer drink of his bourbon, wincing at the burn of the alcohol. He had never been much of a drinker and now that he couldn’t get drunk, he rarely bothered. Tony insisted that it couldn’t hurt, though.

Which was why he was sitting between Tony and Sam, the three of them pacing each other as they tried not to watch the clock. “I still can’t believe you did this, man,” Sam groaned.

“Agreed,” Tony said, tipping back his bourbon.

“You’re the one who gave him access to her floor in the first place,” Steve said to Tony, not appreciating being ganged up on again. They’d been returning to this topic over and over since Tony appeared an hour ago with the bourbon from his stash.

“Yes,” Tony said slowly, “Because she was dancing herself to death. He wanted to help and he’s physically capable of telling her what to do and backing it up. I didn’t see anyone else volunteering.”

Sam snorted. “Yeah, not touching that. I had no idea and if I had, I would not have wanted to get in her way.”

“See?”

Steve groaned and buried his eyes behind one hand. “I hate this. He’s only been free for a few weeks, there’s no way he’s stable enough to be alone with her.”

“She’s fine, Cap. If something was really wrong, we’d know.”

“Yeah, because if something was really wrong, they’d be doing structural damage to the building,” Steve said wryly. “Neither of you saw how beat to hell he was earlier. They must have really gone at it.”

Sam shrugged. “Or he was just working really hard at not hitting back.”

Tony smirked. “Or he was distracted. Hard not to be when you have the spinning thighs of death wrapped around you.”

Sam glared at Tony. “Not helpful.”

Steve groaned again and tried to mentally scrub the image of Bucky and Nat wrapped up together from his mind. It had appeared over and over in the last few hours and he’d been wracked with jealousy over it, but also with, embarrassingly, desire. He found Nat to be unbearably sexy and the image of her with Bucky was for some reason especially alluring. He hated the idea of them being together, but not nearly as much as he hated the fact that he wasn’t with them.

“Sir?” Jarvis said. All three of them sat bolt upright. “Sergeant Barnes and Ms. Romanoff are approaching Captain Rogers’ floor.”

Steve shoved himself off the barstool, forgetting his drink and nearly knocking the stool over in the process. He turned towards the elevator and began to pace a short track back and forth, watching it. They were both alive. And they were both coming here, presumably, to talk to him.

The elevator doors slid soundlessly open and Natasha stepped out of it, followed by Bucky. They both eyed Steve warily when they saw him and paused not far away. Bucky was still badly bruised, but seemed to be healing slowly. Nat was unmarked. Steve wanted to kick himself, but couldn’t help checking for signs that they’d _been_ together. Natasha’s makeup was neatly done, her curls had apparently air-dried, but were otherwise unmessed. Bucky looked much the same as he had when he’d left Steve’s floor four hours ago. “Steve,” Natasha said coolly. Her eyes tracked across the room to Tony and Sam, who were openly staring. “Everything alright here?”

And, suddenly, nothing else mattered. He lurched across the room and gathered her into a hug that lifted her off the floor. “Oof! Easy, Rogers,” she grumbled. He didn’t release her, though, electing to kiss her cheek instead. 

After she’d relaxed and dealt him back a similar kiss, he felt safe lowering her to her feet. “Bucky said you did a number on yourself,” he said quietly, his eyes straying to her feet. They were clad in fluffy wool socks, so if they were damaged, he couldn’t see it. “Are you okay?”

Natasha smiled, but her eyes glittered as if she was hiding something. Pain, perhaps? “I’m fine. A little too much vodka and a little too hard of dancing. Nothing a bit of sleep couldn’t cure.”

“Red,” Tony said, taking a few steps away from the kitchen. Natasha’s eyes flicked to him, her expression still clear. Guarded. Tony, by contrast, looked deeply upset, something he normally hid. “I don’t know if Barnes told you how sorry I am. I shouldn’t have pushed so hard.”

“Sticks and stones, Shellhead,” she said, shrugging. “Don’t worry about it. Just don’t do it again.”

Tony looked sheepish at that. Steve looked back to Nat and Bucky, though, his mind racing again. “So…did you have a chance to talk?” he asked gently, his eyes meeting Bucky’s. “Did you remember anything?” Bucky nodded slowly, answering several questions all at once. Steve’s stomach twisted. They had known each other, and they had been together at some point. He looked over his shoulder to Tony and Sam, who were watching everything very closely. “Thanks for everything, guys. Could you give us the room?”

Sam hissed in disappointment, but otherwise made no complaint as he got up and made for the elevator. Tony sighed dramatically and retrieved his half-empty bottle of bourbon. “Fine. But we’re going to know eventually anyway, so if you aren’t going to let us hear things firsthand, you don’t get my booze.”

Steve barely resisted rolling his eyes. “Fair enough. Thank you.”

They watched Tony and Sam depart in the elevator, then Steve looked up at the ceiling. “Jarvis? Privacy mode, please.”

“Activated.”

“What did that do?” Bucky asked warily.

“Nobody can listen in or enter the floor.” Steve motioned to the living area and Natasha and Bucky moved slowly, awkwardly, ahead of him to choose seats. Natasha curled her legs under her in the armchair. Bucky hesitated, then sat on the end of the couch, looking deeply uncomfortable. Steve sat at the near end of the other couch to give Bucky his space. “You knew each other, then?”

Bucky looked down at his folded hands, but Natasha nodded. “Yes. We met…at the Red Room. I don’t know how we got close, but we became lovers.”

Bucky looked ready to crawl out of his skin. Steve just locked down his reaction and nodded. “Okay. Do you know for how long? What ended it?”

“We don’t know.” Natasha’s brow creased deeply and her eyes fell. “They must have found out and wiped it from both our memories. All either of us have are bits and pieces.”

“The rest could come back, though, right?” Steve asked, realizing he was feeling hopeful about that. The idea of Bucky and Nat missing pieces of their memories, especially such precious pieces, made him sick.

Bucky shrugged stiffly. “I’m getting things back, so yes, in theory. Natalia hasn’t been wiped in years, though, and she only has little pieces.”

He felt his shoulders sink. “I’m sorry. We could look into ways to break memory blocks. Dr. Banner may have some suggestions. He’s due back from his trip to Brazil soon.”

Natasha looked at him grimly. “That’s very sweet of you, Steve, but there’s a chance it isn’t just blocks. If they found a way to…cut it out, burn it out…it may be gone for good.”

“No,” he said immediately, shaking his head. “You wouldn’t be getting little pieces if they’d managed that. It would just be gone, all or nothing. I’m going to give Banner a call, see what he can come up with.”

For several minutes, there was quiet. Then, Bucky asked softly, “So where does this leave us?”

Steve had been thinking very hard about that for the last several hours and had come to a decision of sorts some time ago. He looked to Natasha, who met his gaze warily. “That’s up to you, Nat.”

“Me? Why me?”

He forced a fraction of a smile. “Because both of us want you and we’re not going to fight over you. It wouldn’t be right. So, where we go from here is up to you.”

\--------------

They were leaving it up to her. Leaving their happiness, their hearts, entirely in her hands.

She didn’t deserve them.

For a moment, she kept everything locked down cold, calculating behind her mask of marble. She didn’t have it in her to do a real relationship right now. She was in pieces and the last thing she wanted was to hurt anyone else, especially after she’d nearly killed James earlier and probably pushed Steve halfway to a broken heart with worry. No, she didn’t want to hurt them anymore by prolonging things. They had both loved her in their own ways, given her a sense of peace in the brief moments they’d had, and she owed them for that.

Besides, she still had work to do.

But could she really let go of them? Not entirely. It would hurt too damn much and, apparently, she’d grown weak and selfish. No. She couldn’t push them away.

Finally, she said, “I don’t want to come between you.” Her eyes snapped to James’s and she added, “Not when you’re just getting each other back.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Natalia,” James said firmly. “And Steve and I talked about this. If you choose him, I won’t blame you and I won’t leave either of you. I’ll hurt, obviously, but we’ll make it work.”

“We want whatever you want, Nat,” Steve said, smiling encouragingly.

She nodded once, stiffly. She wanted to not have to choose. She wanted to return to her mission without having to worry about losing either of them. Maybe that was her answer? “I want to return to work. And I don’t want to let go of either of you. I don’t know what that looks like long-term, but that’s what I want.” She raised an eyebrow at Steve. “And if you don’t like me doing my job, then you don’t know me well enough to keep me. There will always be another mission and I will always do it.”

“But not alone,” Steve said, having gone perfectly serious listening to her. “You’ll go with me as backup.” At James’s sharp look, Steve amended that. “You’ll go with both of us as backup.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Define ‘backup.’ These traffickers are smart, Steve. Their hideouts aren’t easy to find, they’re always moving. And the buyers are almost impossible to get. The way I do it is the best way I know to do it.”

Steve scowled deeply, his blue eyes flicking to her wrists, which had thankfully healed. She felt James’s eyes on her too and wondered how long it would take him to figure out her methods. “I don’t like it, Nat. I don’t like letting you get yourself hurt.”

James stiffened at that and his ice-blue eyes pierced her. Were there Red Room missions she’d done that he would remember? She’d done plenty of things she wished she could forget, things that had to be done for the sake of the mission, but which left her raw and bleeding inside. “What does he mean, Natalia?”

“It’s a game I play,” she said before Steve could answer for her, holding Steve’s gaze. “I let them see what they want to see. A pretty foreign girl, a little naïve, in the wrong place at the wrong time. They drug me, bring me in as product, put me with the other girls until they have their buyers organized. The drugs hardly hit me, I was desensitized to most everything when I was in the Red Room, but I let them think I’m barely standing. They put me in front of the buyers and when they’re all there in their secure room with all their contacts and banking information readily available, when they’re all distracted looking at the pretty foreign girl standing there barely conscious…well. The game ends.”

“And they die,” James finished, his voice as cool as hers’.

“Yes.” She broke Steve’s deeply concerned face to look to James, who did not appear concerned at all. “And then they die. I leave the bodies, the evidence, and the freed girls for the authorities and I disappear with the information I need to go after the next group.”

“Last time, they beat her half to hell, Buck, and the guy had his hands all over her,” Steve said, his teeth gritted. He raised his eyebrows at her. “We are not doing that again.”

“Well, it shouldn’t be a solo op,” James said, shrugging and looking to her again. “That’s asking for trouble. But I could go in as a buyer. Then you’d have someone there with you for the riskiest part.”

“Hey!” Steve said in dismay. “Don’t encourage this! What if they use a different drug and are successful knocking her out? What if the next group is more violent or unpredictable? What if they don’t let you in as a buyer?”

James glared at Steve then. “And what do you suggest we do? Like Natalia said, they’re always moving, they’re not fools, this isn’t like a Hydra base that stays in one spot for decades. There are certain places we can start to dismantle, hot spots, but as soon as we show our hand, they go underground again and we’ll never get the buyers that way.”

“You’re okay with using her as bait?”

“I would never _use_ her,” James snapped, his voice going very cold all of a sudden. He’d been a tool, a weapon, for too long. So had she. The difference was she was used to it and he wasn’t. Steve recoiled from the words as if slapped. “She is _using_ her skills and relying on her ability to survive, which she’s done successfully for a long time. I don’t like it, but it makes me feel better to know that if I cooperate, I can be in the room with her when she takes them down. You’d never make it as an undercover operative, but you can follow me and be outside ready as backup. Stark can give us some kind of enhanced tracker so we can keep tabs on her. This is the best way.”

Steve held up both hands, but neither she nor Bucky believed he’d ever surrender a fight. “Hear me out, Buck. I don’t know that you’re stable enough…”

And, just like that, James was on his feet, the Winter Soldier glaring down at Steve. “You think I’m stable enough to have a group therapy session with Natalia over what we do or don’t remember, but I’m not stable enough to do the only damn thing I’m good at? Killing, infiltrating, not getting caught. That’s all I’ve done the last seventy years. If you don’t like it, say the word. We’ll see how long you and Stark can keep his quinjets on the ground.”

Steve buried his face in his hands. “Fine. I’ll go with you and I’ll convince Tony to give you both access to the armory to prep.” He looked up at them both then, though, and pointed at them each in turn. “I know how this ends, though, and when I’m the one sitting here patching you both up and you’re telling me you’re fine to go again, I’m going to say ‘no.’”

\----------------

It took a few more days of research and identity building, but Natalia had managed to set him up as a potential buyer in the circles that Pietrov, her latest mark, cultivated. Pietrov was apparently an acquaintance and sometimes buyer of Vankov’s who ran his business primarily out of the Hungary with hunting grounds in the tourist areas of nearby Vienna. With plenty of gear, a bio-tracking solution running through Natalia’s veins, and Stark’s worried blessing, they took a quinjet to a safehouse Natalia had set up in Budapest from which to do her trafficking work in Eastern Europe.

It bothered him quite a bit to be back in Eastern Europe. He didn’t like how naturally his Russian came back, didn’t like how he knew Budapest as well as he did New York, didn’t like how Steve bristled as they walked around downtown Budapest or how Natalia melted into her role as a West Coast American student exploring the world alone for the first time. She walked around with a guidebook she’d had in the safehouse and smiled naively at the shopkeepers, struggling through a poor excuse for Hungarian that was more like German with a heavy California accent than anything else. It also bothered him to assume his own role, opening communications with Pietrov through the online portal Natalia already knew of, posing as a businessman with a very shady side currently operating out of Hungary rather than his native Moscow. His newness to the area explained his newness to Pietrov’s circle, but his knowledge of the Russian trafficking rings Natalia had imparted on him gave him easy access to Pietrov’s good graces. He explained that he was seeking a young redhead and that he would pay to have her quickly.

They had been in Budapest for only two days when they got the cue they needed from Pietrov. He promised to find his new friend ‘Ivan’ a suitable match. It was time to place Natalia in the hunting grounds.

They dropped Natalia on the edge of Vienna with nothing but a Coach backpack, a flashy purple handbag, and her California accent, which she used for the entirety of the trip there. When they landed on a quiet parking structure, she gave them both reassuring smiles and kisses on the cheek, then waved them off. As Steve pulled up on the quinjet, circling slowly away back towards Budapest, they watched Natalia disappear. Steve sighed anxiously. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this one bit.”

“It’ll be okay, Stevie,” he said without really thinking about it. “She knows what she’s doing.”

And he hoped like hell that she did know what she was doing.

As agreed, they received no communication of any kind from Natalia in the next four days. They could only stare over each other’s shoulders at the blinking red dot on the laptop screen and watch it move around Vienna. They kept an eye out for communication from Pietrov, but there was nothing. They operated with at least one of them in the safehouse at all times watching their communication inflows, only leaving long enough to retrieve takeout.

He kept himself busy checking and rechecking all of the weapons. He’d about cleaned out the Tower’s armory and kept very carefully looking over Natalia’s new Bites, which resembled wide silver bracelets. Stark had tried to convince her to wear them in Vienna, but she insisted that they’d just be taken by the traffickers when they brought her in. So, he planned to bring them along to the rendezvous and get them to her during the fight.

Assuming the rendezvous happened.

Four days had gone by before he contacted Pietrov himself. _Do you have what I’m looking for or not?_ Always in Russian, of course.

Within hours, Pietrov responded, _I have just acquired the perfect one. I am hosting an event Saturday evening at a favorite spot of mine in eastern Budapest. Can I count on your attendance?_

_ Looking forward to it. I hope you do have what I am seeking._

_ I assure you, you will not be disappointed._

“Saturday,” Steve growled, reading as he typed. Apparently, he’d picked up some basic Russian from Natalia. “She’ll have been with that scum for at least five days, maybe as many as nine if they’ve had her in Vienna all this time.”

“There’s nothing else we can do but wait and be ready,” he said, hating every second of this. Images flashed through his tattered mind of fresh scars and bruises seen by moonlight. “She’s done this before and I hated it just as much then, but this is what she wanted.”

“If they lay a hand on her…”

“She’ll remove their hands herself,” he finished, his voice nothing more than a vicious growl that came directly from the Soldier. It didn’t even startle him, though Steve flinched. “We just have to wait and let her do her job. She’s the Black Widow, the best in the world at what she does. She won’t fail. She is marble.”

“Do you hear yourself? This is Nat. She’s a woman, not a weapon.”

“She’s not a woman right now,” he said, though he hated the words, hated how true they were. “Not when she’s in the mission. She’s not your Nat or my Natalia. She’s the Widow and the Widow gets her mark no matter what.”

Steve groaned and began to pace the room. “I hate this. I should never have let her do this. This is insane and wrong.”

He shut his eyes tight, shutting out Steve, shutting out Pietrov. He saw only her, felt her lovely hands on his skin, her lips at his temple, whispering to him. 

_I always come back to you, don’t I, liubymij? And I’ll come back this time too._

_If they lay a hand on you like the last time…_

_I told you, liubymij, they will no longer have their hands. Besides, I am marble._

But she wasn’t. She was a woman, and he very suddenly remembered the way she’d once shuddered when he pushed her down too hard on the bed, the way tears had sprung to her eyes despite her efforts to stop them.

_Natalia, my Natalia…what did he do?_

_Nothing that was not required by the mission._

_But, Natalia, what have you given up for the mission?_

_Everything, liubymij. Everything. But I completed the mission and I will heal. I am marble._

What did it take to heal a soul, though? What did it take to heal a woman who’d let monsters do what they liked to her for the sake of a mission? What did it take to heal a woman who’d been pushed down into a bed, a woman who could have killed a man a hundred ways but let him fuck her instead because she’d been ordered to?

And was she still doing it?

Tears burned his eyes and he dug his fingers into his skull, adding extra pain to his building headache. He deserved it. He’d allowed her to do this. Not just this time, but in the past too. He’d known what she was doing, what they were making her do, and he hadn’t gotten them out, taken her away somewhere safe.

And, for the thousandth time since he began to get his memories back, he hated himself.


	9. He'll No Longer Have Hands

It was 10:46pm that Saturday night when Steve heard the gunshots from where he was stationed across the street and three floors up from the club Pietrov had chosen. The traffic was fortunately quiet because Steve really didn’t care about avoiding cars right then. He was already vaulting off the balcony and rolling across the pavement to his feet. He was at the door as it opened and the first of the screaming civilians began to pour out and he pressed his way into the packed club as the lights were coming on and the music was cutting out. Gunshots could still be heard echoing from a back corridor that he followed at a sprint to where a trio of bodyguards were trying to shoot their way into a private room. They took no notice of Steve until he’d knocked two of their heads together, sending them to their knees, and clotheslined the third. In seconds, he had them all unconscious on the ground and turned his attention to the door. The bodyguards had done a number on it trying to get in and had failed, but, as Nat would say, breaking down doors was Steve’s specialty.

When he broke through, the heavy door took two bullets before he met Bucky’s eyes across the room. They were like knives. This wasn’t the Winter Soldier he was looking at, but it wasn’t Bucky either as the man lowered the Desert Eagle .45 in his metal hand, then turned his head stiffly to redirect his attention. On the floor two steps to Bucky’s left, protected by his metal arm and the gun in it, knelt Natasha, her red hair in wild curls, her back left bare by the tiny bloodstained dress she wore. She was doing something, he realized, something that involved the body lying before her.

He stepped forward slowly, taking in the sea of bodies around him as if he was in a trance. There were over two dozen of them, all dead, some still bleeding from the bullet holes Bucky’s Desert Eagle had punched in them, some with their heads twisted a hundred and eighty degrees around or more, some slashed open by a knife. To his surprise, there was a stern-looking woman among the dead. Bucky had blasted away the upper left portion of her face, but her right eye still stared at him blankly.

A guttural cry ripped his attention from the dead to the man lying beneath Natasha and Bucky. Steve took a few steps closer until he could just barely see what was going on. At that point, Bucky held out a hand to indicate that he should stay back and he could see why. He’d had so many fights with Bucky and Natasha on separate occasions about the messier side of war and now was not the time for an argument.

The man on the floor resembled the Pietrov of the mugshot Natasha had given them well enough to make a match, but his face was contorted with pain and fury and sprayed with blood. “You bitch!” Pietrov cried as Natasha wrenched her arm to one side. Natasha leaned over him and murmured something to him in perfect Hungarian that Steve couldn’t understand, then she raised her arm high enough that he could see the bloody knife in her hand before she drove it downward. Pietrov wailed and Steve just barely kept his stomach righted as Natasha wrenched her arm again and a sick tearing sound followed the motion. Pietrov’s scream trailed off to moans and whimpers as she stood, handing the knife to Bucky. She was barefoot and her yellow dress barely covered her and there were blood spatters all across her skin. Pietrov was still alive and openly sobbing. Blood poured from his wrists where Natasha had severed his hands.

“How long?” Natasha asked coldly. As he stared, she began to move methodically around the room, retrieving phones and other devices and leaving them face-up beside their owners. He didn’t realize she was talking to him until he felt Bucky’s eyes on him, then he answered, “I’m surprised they’re not here yet.”

“We’ll go out the back way, then,” she said, returning to Pietrov without looking at either him or Bucky. Staring down at Pietrov, she held out one hand to Bucky, who wordlessly put his Desert Eagle in it. Steve’s eyes were locked on her face, on the mottled bruises, the tear-streaked black makeup, the deadness in her green eyes. Without blinking, she put a single bullet in Pietrov’s brain, then stepped over his body and made her way towards a back door. Steve and Bucky followed without a word.

There was indeed a back door to the private room that led to a dark, empty corridor. Natasha moved without hesitation to another door, which she gave a purposeful knock on. The door opened enough for the barrel of the Desert Eagle to fit through, then opened the rest of the way. There was a _crunch_ and the man who’d been guarding the door dropped at Natasha’s feet with a broken neck. She didn’t spare him a passing glance as they entered the room, which was filled with the smell of sweat and perfume and the soft whimpers of mostly unconscious women.

There were twenty-one of them, all just shy of unconscious, all with messed hair, tear-streaked makeup, and bruises on their faces and wrists. They were all in little club dresses like Natasha and in high heels that looked strange strapped to limp feet and rolling ankles. 

The women all flinched away from him and Bucky, but he crouched down low and spoke soft words he hoped they understood, offering his knife. The first woman, a pretty blonde who couldn’t be more than eighteen, hesitated, but, sobbing, offered her ziptied wrists to him. Bucky helped him free the rest. They were all too weak to stand, but giving them back their hands soothed them.

Natasha had gone directly to a dark-haired woman and was speaking Italian to her, murmuring things in a tone that was at once gentle and firm. The woman was weeping silently and seemed to be trying to insist upon something, but gave in, leaning close to kiss Natasha on the forehead and then shoo her away. Natasha, still holding the Desert Eagle, found a pair of boots near the back of the room, put them on, then called over her shoulder. “Come on, boys. I have a date with a glass of vodka and a long, hot bath. I’d hate for a meeting with the Budapest police to mess that up.”

Without another word, he and Bucky followed her to a final door, which she shot the lock off of. Then, they were out into the night.

The quinjet was parked on a roof about three blocks away. The three of them walked side-by-side down the dark alleys, listening as the sounds of sirens faded. Natasha never once faltered, through he could see bruises on her legs and arms and her boots had a three-inch heel that didn’t mix well with the uneven pavement. Even climbing the stairs to where the quinjet waited, she never misstepped or sought help. With a push of a button, he started up the quinjet and the cloaking dropped, revealing the craft. They boarded and took off, none of them saying a word nor making eye contact with each other.

When they arrived at the safehouse, Bucky began securing the site and breaking down weapons, pointedly not looking at Steve or Natasha. Natasha was ignoring both of them as well, but Steve followed at a distance and watched her as she stopped at the trashcan in the kitchen to tug off both boots and throw them away. Then, with zero regard for who was watching, she peeled the yellow dress off and added it to the trash. She was naked except for blood and bruises.

Very slowly, she turned to face Steve, her face completely clear of emotion, her eyes shards of jade. She watched him as his eyes followed the trail of injuries across her body, visible even in the dark safehouse. There were fresh bruises from fighting on her arms and legs, raw wounds on her wrists and ankles from zipties, and days-old bruises on her breasts, hips, and thighs. His hands began to shake and his eyes burned as he stared at those bruises, imprinting them onto his mind as what they were. He saw again Pietrov’s agonized face as he watched the blood pour from his severed hands and he knew why.

Suddenly, what had seemed like so much carnage at the club was nothing.

Natasha tipped her head just slightly as if to ask a question. Then, her voice utterly numb, she said, “I’m sorry to hurt you like this, Steve. I didn’t mean for this to happen. When we get back to the Tower, I’d like to still be teammates, if you’re willing. I don’t expect anything more.”

It was like she’d punched him in the gut. All the breath rushed from his lungs and his stomach rolled right over like he might finally vomit. As if the conversation were over, Natasha walked right past him and headed for the bedroom. He could hear the rustle of clothing and turned in time to stand in her path from the bedroom to the bathroom. She stopped and looked up at him with mild surprise. “What the fuck are you talking about, Nat?” he gasped. Her eyes glittered in the darkness, but she blinked and the tears disappeared. She was holding her bundle of clothes out in front of her, but he could still see in his peripheral vision the mottled bruise climbing up her left breast. He felt tears in his own eyes as he very gently traced his thumb around the shape of the bruise. “Jesus Christ,” he said, his voice a mere croak. “That bastard raped you and you think I’d push you away because of that? I am so sorry…I never should have let this happen. This is my fault….”

Nat laid a finger on his lips and he quieted instantly. Her voice was brittle as she said, “Steve. I did this. I knew the risks and I insisted. It’s happened before.”

His gut bottomed out and he staggered into the doorframe, one hand going to his face. _It’s happened before._ Fuck. He felt so sick and some part of his mind was actually praying right then. _Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…._

Nat’s hand cupped his cheek and he met her eyes as she whispered, “Shh. I’m sorry, Steve. I didn’t mean for this to happen. Tony warned me not to let this happen, not to let you see me like this. But this is on me, Steve. This is what I do.”

“Nat,” he choked, horrified. _Blessed art though amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus…._

“The mission comes first,” she said firmly, her eyes locked on his as she tried to soothe him. Every word she spoke, though, made him more upset. “I was trained to infiltrate, to get them to underestimate me, to kill them when they make their mistake. I was trained that sometimes, to complete the mission, I have to allow other things to go wrong. I have to let people get hurt, I have to make myself appear weak. I could have fought him off, but they would have killed me and even if I got them all, the buyers would have escaped. Ten monsters in the business of buying women like cattle. But I waited. I let him use me to convince them their drugs had worked. I let him enjoy it so he’d do it to me and not the other women. And because I did, the people in that room will never buy or sell souls again.” Steve shuddered, his tears dripping down her fingers now as she wiped them away. _Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners…._ “Steve,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. You should’ve known before I ever let you this close to me. This is my fault. I know you won’t want me anymore, and that’s fine. I understand. But I hope you can forgive me someday.”

“Forgive you…Jesus, Nat….” Steve reached out and gathered her into his arms, clutching her to him, sobbing into her hair. She stiffened and for a horrible moment he thought he’d scared her. She’d just been raped and here he was half-crushing her, his hands on her naked skin. Then, she laid her head on his shoulder and she melted, her clothes falling to the floor as she grabbed onto the front of his jacket to hold herself up. “Darling, it kills me that you let them hurt you. That you’ve done this before. It fucking kills me. Don’t you dare apologize to me, though. Don’t you dare. _I’m_ sorry. I’m sorry that I didn’t stop you this time or those other times. I’m sorry that someone made you think it was okay to sacrifice yourself this way. I’m sorry I let you think I could’ve ever pushed you away for this. God…. Natasha, look at me.” He cradled her face in his hands and watched as her lovely green eyes filled with tears. “Natasha, I love you. Whatever happened to bring you here, I wish I could make it right for your sake. I wish I could undo this last week, this last month. But I love you as you are. You don’t have to hide things from me, they won’t change how I feel. And don’t ever think you could disappoint me. You’re the most amazing woman in the world.” Natasha’s face contorted and tears began to fall down her cheeks as she shut her eyes. He bent to kiss her forehead. “I love you. Okay?”

She kissed his throat, then buried her face in it, shaking and crying quietly. He wrapped his arms around her again and just held her for a while.

The door shut and locked and Bucky entered with an armload of weapons and Natasha’s cleaning kit. He dumped it all on the table, then turned slowly and froze when he saw them. In that instant, whatever Buck had been doing in his mind to keep it together broke down. His face crumpled in misery and tears shone in his steel blue eyes. “Natalia,” he moaned softly.

Nat lifted her head to look to him, then reached out one arm, beckoning him to her. Steve loosened his grip to let her go to Bucky, but she held firm, grabbing Buck by the hand and reeling him in to them. Bucky buried his face in her hair and wrapped one arm very gently around her. There was a quiet _creak_ and Steve realized that his left arm was behind his back and his metal fist was clenched so tight the plates were grinding over each other. “Doll,” Bucky murmured to Natasha. “I’m so sorry. A few days ago, after you were gone, I remembered…”

“Shh,” Natasha said softly cutting him off. Steve felt ill again. No wonder Bucky had been so distant the last few days. He’d remembered her letting things like this happen to her on Red Room missions. “Shh, _liubymij_. This was my choice.”

“That does not make this okay,” Bucky choked out. “I’m so sorry. The Soldier was a coward for never getting you out of there. He should have found a way. I’m so sorry.”

“Oh James,” she said softly, sadly, one hand in Bucky’s hair while the other still gripped Steve’s jacket like a lifeline. “We don’t know that you never tried and we do know that you weren’t in control. They were.”

“I was in control enough to love you,” he said brokenly. Steve hadn’t heard him like this since the war, when he would wake from his night terrors and seek comfort from Steve and Steve would oblige, holding him and rocking him until he fell asleep again. “Oh doll, I will never forgive myself for this.”

One of Steve’s hands tightened on Natasha’s waist while the other went to Bucky’s shoulder to comfort him. Bucky began to shake and Natasha turned her head enough to kiss his cheek, then they were all crying together, the three of them.

\-------------

When they were all cried out, Natasha kissed both their cheeks, then said in an utterly raw voice, “Boys. I still want that bath. Stay with me?”

“Of course, darling,” Steve said at once.

“Still want that vodka?” James asked, his voice shattered. She hated herself for that, hated that she’d hurt both of them so badly. She nodded and he kissed her hair, then released her to go to the freezer. As he did, Steve picked up her clothes off the floor and gestured for her to go ahead of him into the bathroom.

She didn’t have her favorite bath salts with her, but she had her favorite lavender bath soap and that would have to do. She ran a steaming hot bath and sank into it when it was half full, eager for the water to wash away all the rawness and self-loathing she was feeling. Steve sat on the floor beside her, his hand on the edge of the tub for her. She didn’t deserve it, but she was feeling weak and selfish, so she took it and gave it a squeeze. James returned then with the bottle of vodka and three glasses and sat on the toilet cover to pour. He offered her the first glass and she took it gratefully. By then the tub was full, so she shut off the water and laid back, one hand wrapped around the glass and the other enveloped in Steve’s. 

For a long time, they stayed like that, drinking their vodka in silence. She wanted to apologize again, but Steve had reacted so badly to that. She truly didn’t understand the way he felt about her. It didn’t compute. Tony had said he loved her; maybe this was what love looked like. And she had memories of James kissing her after missions like this, growling threats at the men who had hurt her as he kissed her half-healed scars. Maybe she was the odd one. It wouldn’t be the first time she realized that her upbringing had left her emotionally stunted.

“So, I saw two bullets to the head,” Steve said quietly. “Are those the only ones you let Bucky have?”

“I got a third with my left fist to the face,” James said, his voice still hoarse. “But yeah, I let her have the rest. She really didn’t need me there.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “I appreciated the knife you gave me.”

“I brought your Bites too,” he said. “You were moving so fast, though, I didn’t think you cared enough to want them.”

“I like them on sanctioned missions and in public,” she said, shrugging. “This kind of mission, though, I kind of like lethal force.”

That brought her silence as a response and she drained her vodka. James topped off her glass without a word.

“Did you get the information you wanted?” Steve asked. “You’re not going after the next one in person, but did you get the information you needed to hack them?”

That was a massive inconvenience, but one she understood. And she didn’t disagree; she would need recovery time from this. “I did. The next one is Ivan Gogolesh in the Ukraine. A few American girls have disappeared in his hunting grounds, so he should be easy to out to the right people.” Meaning that with the U.S. involved, there was a better chance he’d see justice. Both men seemed to get the message because they both visibly stiffened and paid more attention to their vodka. James had to refill his.

They sat there in silence for a long time. They each took another glass of vodka, including Steve to her surprise. She hadn’t pegged him for a vodka drinker, but maybe he was just that desperate tonight. Eventually, the water began to cool and she felt clean enough to tolerate getting out and drying off. She could feel their eyes on her bruises still, but she ignored them and roughed her hair in the towel enough to mostly dry it. Then, she looked to both of them, indicating that they follow her, and went to the bedroom.

She was feeling needy and there was only one bed anyway, so she crawled to the middle and settled in, patting the bed on either side of her. Both men hesitated, but after a moment, James put the gun he’d had in his waistband on the nightstand, shucked off his suit and boots, and crawled in next on her left. She didn’t miss that that put his left arm at the outside of the bed. Steve followed suit, abandoning his jacket and jeans to lie down to her right. In the darkness, they both lied on their sides facing her but not touching her and, after a moment’s hesitation, she took their hands, Steve’s right and James’s left, and laid them on her ribs. Steve very gently stroked from her ribs to her hip and back again over and over. James was more tentative, cautious of his metal hand, not remembering how little she feared it and how there were actually times when she found it quite sexy. With their touch to remind her that she was safe and wanted, she was able to shut her eyes and see darkness, not Pietrov’s face looming over hers. She kissed Steve once softly on the lips, then gave James the same treatment.

She had hardly slept in the week she’d been with Pietrov and his men and she was tired from the fighting. With their hands on her to soothe her and their kisses imprinted on her lips, she slipped into a deep sleep.

\-------------

He didn’t want to sleep and didn’t expect to. Not that night. Not after what he’d seen.

He’d never hated himself as much in his memory as when he watched Natalia being dragged into that room at the club and placed in a chair, ziptied and bruised, her head lolling to the side as if she were affected by the drugs. When she’d taken her moment and broken free to lay waste to those monsters, he’d watched her six and let her take them down, watching her move in awe of her graceful wrath. He’d never seen anyone fight like her. When it was over, he’d watched her crouch beside Pietrov, knife in hand, and he’d known.

_If they lay hands on me, they will no longer have hands._

He’d hated himself more then. He’d been unable to look at her or Steve out of guilt.

Then, they’d arrived at the safehouse and he’d seen the physical evidence for himself and hated himself even more, more now than he’d thought was possible. Not for the first time and, probably, not for the last, he thought of putting a bullet in his head. He didn’t want to live with allowing this to happen to her.

But then she’d let him and Steve take care of her and protect her and now she’d fallen asleep in their arms. He couldn’t die yet, not when she was allowing him to pay his penance caring for her.

Her watched her sleep for a long time, then looked across her to meet Steve’s eyes in the darkness. This situation was so strange, but it didn’t feel that way. In fact, it felt like the most natural thing in the world to love the same woman Steve did, to have her lying between them, both their hands on her almost touching each other.

“It’s not your fault,” Steve whispered.

The words gutted him and he shook his head, the tears coming to his eyes again. “Even if I’m not entirely at fault, her blood is on my hands. I agreed to this, I _fought_ for this. And I should have remembered that this has happened before, that she has a history of self-destruction. This is on me, Steve.”

“It’s on both of us,” Steve said. “Most of all, it’s on those bastards in the Red Room.”

He couldn’t argue with that.

Steve managed a few hours of fitful sleep. He sometimes reached across Natalia to lay a comforting hand on Steve’s shoulder and that was enough to soothe him through whatever nightmares he was having. He didn’t sleep at all, though, just watched them sleep until the first rays of sunlight peeked around the edges of the blackout curtains.

Natalia slept late and he and Steve took turns sneaking off to the bathroom to use the toilet and brush their teeth, then settled in again, bracketing her. Eventually, Natalia moaned softly and rolled onto her chest between them, a crease forming in her brow. He greedily ran his hand up and down her back and laid soft kisses on her shoulder. She was warm despite her nakedness, probably from sleeping between him and Steve, who both seemed to run hot-blooded thanks to the serum. Steve laid his arm across her waist and kissed her hair, then laid his cheek on her shoulder and looked at him. “You know,” he said, “This should be so strange, but it doesn’t feel like it.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

Maybe she would keep them both. The idea felt so novel and beautiful. Was it even possible? How would they do that? But, no. There was no way it could happen. She would eventually choose Steve and that would be fine. They deserved each other.

In the meantime, though, he would be selfish and enjoy this.

When Natalia finally decided to fully wake, she gave them both lazy kisses, then left the bed to dress and do whatever else she included in her morning ablutions. He and Steve dressed too and prepared the safehouse to be abandoned once more. By the time Natalia was out of the bathroom, they were ready to load up the quinjet and head back for the States.

They were going home and, it occurred to him, thanks to Steve and Natalia, it might someday feel like home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for gore and reference to rape. If you want to avoid the triggers, skip to Natasha's POV, which is the second section.


	10. Refresh

Natasha took the pilot’s seat when they boarded the quinjet in Budapest and Steve let her, understanding that she needed to feel in control of something, needed to feel normal. He busied himself by fixing sandwiches with what had been left in the safehouse fridge so they all ate. The food tasted like sawdust to him, but he choked it down and watched to make sure that Bucky and Nat ate theirs too. He’d noticed Bucky hardly eating in the last few days, probably since remembering that Nat had put herself in this kind of danger before and come out similarly scarred. He ate the whole sandwich, though, his eyes never straying from Natasha.

Neither of them missed the way Nat’s hand shook as she ate.

Natasha called ahead to Tony to tell him that ‘the mission was successful’ and that they’d be home that night. Even through the line, he must have heard the rawness in her voice, though, because Steve overheard Tony ask, “What aren’t you telling me, Red? You’ve been gone ten days. Was there a problem?”

“Nothing I didn’t plan for,” she said, her voice smoothing out into her usual mask. A brick dropped into Steve’s stomach at the words, but he said nothing. A glance towards the back of the quinjet showed him Bucky burying his face in a wall.

If only they’d known.

That night, Tony was waiting for them on the landing pad just like he’d been when Steve brought Bucky and Natasha home. This time was so very different, though. Tony was grim, something Steve had never truly seen on him, and one shared glance told Steve that Tony knew what had gone wrong and that he’d only needed to see Steve’s face to confirm it. Tony’s dark eyes were black holes, canyons furrowed in his brow, and his hands were fists at his sides. Bucky was in shambles. He’d scarcely spoken a word on the flight over and moved slowly with his shoulders hunched. His icy eyes were red-rimmed from sleep deprivation and fighting off tears. He looked like a kicked dog. Steve felt like they looked.

Natasha moved down the ramp without hesitation, but without any of the confidence she’d had the last time they did this. “Hey Shellhead,” she said, her voice a rasp.

“Red,” Tony mumbled, reaching out a hand to her. She took it and pulled him in by it for a hug. Tony stiffened in surprise, but hugged her closer and shut his eyes with little hesitation. He murmured something to her that Steve couldn’t catch even with his enhanced hearing, then Natasha kissed his cheek and said, “You’re sweet, Tony.”

He expected a flare of jealousy upon seeing that, but it didn’t come. He only felt relief that Tony cared that much for Natasha’s wellbeing. He looked to Bucky, who was staring at Nat and Tony too. There wasn’t an ounce of anger in him, just brokenness.

“Come on, guys,” Steve said, hoping his voice came out sounding less defeated than he felt. “Let’s find some food.”

Tony released Natasha and led the way to the door. “I can order something in. Pizza, anyone?”

“Pizza sounds perfect,” Natasha said. As they all got into the elevator and began to descend, she added, “I’m going to shower and call Clint, then I’ll meet you on the common level.”

“Deal.” She met Steve’s eye and gave him a tiny half-smile that he almost bought. Then, she was off the elevator and the rest of them were continuing to descend without her.

The moment the elevator doors closed, a strangled sob escaped Bucky. Steve spun and wrapped him in a fierce hug that Bucky returned, his fingers digging into his back. Then, Bucky was openly sobbing into his jacket. Steve staggered under the weight, physical and emotional, of Bucky’s misery and felt his own trying to break out. But he couldn’t let it right now. He had to be strong for Bucky and for Nat.

“Jarvis, stop the elevator,” Tony said, his voice raw. Steve looked to him over Bucky’s shoulder and saw that he was barely hanging on fighting tears as well. “Didn’t expect the Terminator to be the first to break down.”

Bucky shuddered, but otherwise made no attempt to hide his continuing misery. Steve sighed, eyes still on Tony. “They knew each other before, him and Nat. And a few days into the op, he remembered that she’s done this before. He thinks he should have remembered sooner and stopped her.”

“Jesus,” Tony groaned, his eyes falling shut and his head leaning back against the wall of the elevator.

Bucky’s breathing was becoming uneven and choppy in the way Steve recognized from the War. After Azzano, there had been plenty of times when Bucky had descended into panic attacks, sometimes bad enough that he hyperventilated, lost control of his muscles, and even passed out. “Shh,” Steve whispered to him. “Shh. It’s not your fault. It’s like I said, this was the Red Room. This was those bastards that trained her to do shit like this. They taught her that this was okay, that she’s worth less than the mission.” Bucky shuddered and stopped breathing for several seconds, then inhaled sharply. Steve rubbed his back and leaned his face into Bucky’s hair. “Hey. Stay with me. We’re not there anymore. We’re home, at the Tower, and no one’s going to hurt you or her anymore. You and I are going to take care of her. Right?”

“Fuck, Steve,” Bucky moaned. “How am I supposed to take care of her when I can’t even take care of myself?”

“That’s what I’m here for, jerk. I take care of both of you.” On impulse, he kissed Bucky’s hair and Bucky shuddered again, then his breathing seemed to ease a bit.

“Jarvis, where are Wilson and Banner?” Tony asked quietly.

“Sir, Mr. Wilson is on his floor and Dr. Banner is in his lab. Neither have been informed of the quinjet’s arrival yet.”

“Good, wait for my word. And order enough pizza for all of us. You know what we like.”

“Of course, sir.”

Steve blinked away tears and looked up at Tony, then, who was pointedly looking away from him and Bucky and rubbing his eyes. It occurred to him that to an outsider’s perspective, he and Bucky weren’t exactly behaving platonically right then, but he didn’t really care. Besides, it could also just be that Tony was beside himself too. “Thanks, Tony,” he said.

“Don’t mention it.”

\-----------------

The moment the elevator door closed, she dropped to her knees like a marionette whose strings had been cut. A strangled cry escaped from her raw throat and ice-cold tears fell over her bruised cheeks.

Last night, she’d been in control. Last night had been about finishing the mission and then about dealing with the fallout, which meant being strong for the guys. And they had needed her to be strong. If she had lost control like this last night when they were in so much pain, it would have been a mess.

Flying home had been hard. She’d had very little to occupy her mind other than the quinjet and memories of waking up between them that morning, which had been bliss in the middle of chaos, an eye in the storm. She didn’t have any memories of waking up in the arms of someone she trusted. The closest thing would be the motel beds she’d shared with Clint on missions, but she and Clint had never been physical. She hadn’t realized until last night when she’d been feeling so emotional and needy how much the physical stuff counted for. And that didn’t even mean sex, necessarily, but physical comfort. Gentle hands ghosting along her ribs or back, kisses on her shoulders and hair, arms looped around her waist. It meant the world.

But it was so weak and selfish of her.

_Sloppy._

No. She was not in the Red Room anymore and Madame B did not rule her life.

She felt weak and sloppy now, though, sitting on the floor crying her eyes out over something that she couldn’t undo, something that she’d allowed, something that she didn’t even regret. What she’d done had protected pregnant Marianna, Lily and Evangeline who were only seventeen, Elspeth and Victoria who had husbands and children waiting for them at home. Pietrov had not laid hands on any of them because of what she’d done and she would not take that back.

She shook off the tears, got to her feet, and went to shower. It was a long shower, designed to wash away everything from Budapest and Vienna, all the memories, all the shards of her cover, all the bitterness, all the blood. She scrubbed herself raw, leaving her skin red and angry, shaved, and even trimmed her hair when she finished. It was a ritual she went through after particularly bad missions, a way of starting fresh. She braided her hair around her head to a braided bun at the back, putting it all under tight control, then brushed her teeth, put on her usual makeup, and applied her favorite perfume. In her bedroom, she found a black zip-up sweater, skinny jeans, and boots. She didn’t care much whether she wore shoes around the Tower or not, but she liked how strong and in control the boots made her feel.

When she’d finished dressing, she grabbed the burner phone in the top drawer of her nightstand and dialed Clint’s latest number from memory.

“I take it Steve found you, then?” was the greeting after one ring.

“Hello to you, too, Clint,” she said, smiling. She had missed his voice so much, had missed him. And now, of all times, she needed to hear his voice.

“Thought you’d forgotten all about me.”

“I could never forget you.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Unfortunately,” she agreed.

“Are you back in New York?”

“Yeah, and staying here for a while.” She swallowed, thinking of the look on Steve’s face when he’d said _you’re not going after them in person_. “My last mission was successful, but bittersweet. Steve’s not going to let me out of the Tower for a while, I’m thinking.”

Clint thought about that for a moment, then asked quietly, “Bittersweet like Costa Rica or bittersweet like Morocco?”

She let her eyes fall shut. “Morocco.”

Clint growled angrily and she began to hear the ambient noises of him moving around, probably packing things up. “Damn it, Nat. You’re supposed to have strings to pull to get out of those missions. That’s what we agreed on last time.”

Her eyes began to burn at the kindness and fury in his voice. He was her best friend and he cared about her so much. She wished she could have gone to him when SHIELD fell, but she couldn’t bear to risk Laura and the kids. “I had them. I didn’t pull them.”

“Fucking hell, Nat.” There was a _smash_, possibly Clint’s fist connecting with a wall or inanimate object. “You can’t keep doing this, you’re worth more than this.”

“Twenty-one this time, Clint,” she said firmly, wiping the tears away. “One was pregnant, two were married with children, and two were underage. I did what I had to to protect them from getting the same treatment.”

“If you’d pulled your strings you still could have gotten them out.”

“And let the _ten_ buyers I killed go free? No. I had to do this, Clint.”

“God, Nat,” he groaned. He punched something else, then the sounds of movement resumed. “I fucking hate this. I’m coming up there.”

She sighed. “I figured that. When should I expect you?”

“Save me a spot at dinner tomorrow night. I’ll drive up. Tell Jarvis to expect me.”

“Okay.”

“And Nat?” She took a deep breath and was pleased that it didn’t rattle in her chest. “Please take care of yourself until I get there. No broken toes, no provoking Steve.”

“I think I can survive the next twenty-four hours alone.”

“I know you can _survive_ it, that’s not the problem. See you soon, kid.”

When he’d disconnected, she looked down at the phone screen. One minute forty-eight. They were still pretty good at that.

She dropped the phone on the floor and smashed it under one boot. When it came to the possibility of someone tracking Clint’s family, she took no chances.

In the sudden silence, she just sat there on the end of the bed, looking around the room. There was no more evidence of her here than there was at the Budapest safehouse. All her clothes were neatly hidden away in the dresser and closet, her weapons stashed in their hiding places. Even in the bathroom, almost everything was neatly organized in the cupboard. The rest of the floor was no better. The studio was really the only sign of her living here, and even that she kept spotless.

It felt hollow, not at all like a place to call home.

She dreaded coming back to sleep in that bed tonight.

She armed herself with two knives and a compact handgun in her boots, plus the literal stilettos in her heels that she could access with the right kick. She wrapped her garrote around her right forearm under her sleeve and put on her Bites.

Now she felt safe.

When she got to the common level, Steve, James, and Tony were talking quietly in the kitchen. They fell silent upon her entrance and stared at her. She raised an eyebrow and walked right past them to the freezer, where she normally kept a bottle of vodka stashed. It was still there. “Am I interrupting something?” she asked drily.

“Sam and Bruce are here,” Steve explained, looking nervous. “You don’t have to see them yet if you don’t want to. They don’t know we’re here.”

That was thoughtful. She swallowed a lump in her throat. “It’s fine. Thank you, though.”

Tony nodded stiffly and said, “Jarvis? Invite Banner and Wilson to join us.”

“As you wish, sir.”

She poured a glass of vodka rather than drink out of the bottle in the interest of being social. As she sipped, she looked around at the three of them. They looked like absolute hell, especially James, and were doing a poor job trying to hide it. She felt ill and choked it back with another hit of vodka. She’d done this. She’d hurt them by hurting herself.

_You’re worth more than this._ Maybe Clint was right. 

She drained her glass, set it beside the bottle, then stepped into their circle. As they watched her, she slipped a hand into James’s back pocket, cupping his perfect ass, and, with the help of her high-heeled boots, kissed his cheek. “It’s not your fault, _liubymij_,” she whispered in his ear. “I promise, it isn’t.”

She could feel the weight of Tony and Steve’s gazes on her, but her eyes were only for her soldier. James looked to her with those steel-blue eyes swimming with unshed tears and a part of her broke. “I know you had to do it, but that doesn’t make it okay, _malen’kiy pauk._”

The pet name, little spider, threw her off-balance and she blinked twice, shocked. A memory knocked itself loose, James chuckling teasingly as he pinned her down on the floor. Sparring? Or making love? She realized then it had sometimes been a fine line with them. _“No, no, malen’kiy pauk. You’re mine.”_

“I hadn’t remembered that,” she said softly. Without thinking about it, she laid her free hand on his chest. “When…?”

“I think I called you that a lot,” he said, his voice suddenly hoarse with emotion. “When things were good for us, anyway.”

Sadness flooded her. “And you remembered some of the times that weren’t good.”

He looked a thousand years old as he brushed his thumb across her hip. “Do you still have a scar here?”

A chill ran down her spine and she shook her head slowly. “It healed. But I remember the wound.” It had been a pig of a man running for office in Moscow. The Red Room had wanted him to die in infamy so others would be too embarrassed by his memory to follow him. He’d had a thing for women and a thing for being rough with them, so Natasha had been placed with a trio of whores who visited him one night. She was to let him have his way with them up to a point, then kill him in self defense and escape while one of the other girls called emergency services. At one point, he’d cut her panties off with a knife and purposely left a scar on her hip that had taken years to fade.

James nodded slowly, showing her that he remembered the details of that mission quite well. “I’m glad it healed.”

She sighed sadly and leaned her head on his shoulder.

“You’ll remember the good things too,” Steve said softly. She looked to him and realized that he was speaking to both her and James. “Those things will come back.”

Here she was, clinging to James, his best friend, and he was being kind to them. She didn’t deserve him. She took her hand off James’s chest and reached for Steve. He took her hand and kissed her knuckles, his perfect blue eyes locked with hers. “We’ll get through, darling. I promise.”

She smiled and squeezed his hand.

The elevator chimed and Tony left the kitchen to greet whoever was on it. Steve took a step closer and said softly, “I was thinking, darling. You seemed to sleep pretty well last night and we’re both worried about you. Would you mind some company tonight? Or maybe you could stay with one of us?”

When the flicker of surprise faded, tears sprang to her eyes. She choked them down and nodded. “Yes. I’d like that.” She slid her hand out of James’s pocket and around his waist, squeezing him against her in the same moment that she squeezed Steve’s hand. “I’d like both of you.” 

“You’ve got us, doll,” James whispered, kissing her hair.

Steve smiled just barely and kissed her hand again, then released her.

\-------------

Natalia slipped away to refill her vodka as Sam and a small man introduced as Bruce Banner entered the room. He missed her immediately, even if it would have been awkward being introduced to everyone as Steve’s best friend while Steve’s girl was draped around him. It had probably been awkward for Stark seeing that. They would figure all that out, though. It would be especially easy for everyone when she officially chose Steve. He’d feel like shit, but it would be better for everyone.

He fucking loved her hand in his back pocket, all intimate and possessive. It made him greedy, made him want her for himself.

Sam seemed like a nice enough guy and seemed to have a strong bond with Steve despite not having known each other long. He liked the idea of Steve having friends, even if this one seemed to be vying for the best friend title. Maybe he deserved it. He hadn’t talked to Sam really at all on the way from Bulgaria to New York, so he made a point to do that now. When he apologized to Sam for trying to kill him in D.C. and for destroying his wings, Sam grinned and said, “Nah, man. Now that I’m an Avenger and all, Tony’s working on an upgrade for me.”

“That’s right,” Stark said with a grin. He’d magically acquired a glass of vodka, hopefully mixed with something. Natalia drank expensive, high-proof vodka and Stark was only human. “Soon no one will be able to take this guy out of the sky.”

“Let me know if you want to go for a run or spar sometime, huh? I’m down at the V.A. every other afternoon, but otherwise, my door is open,” Sam said to him. He still had that happy-go-lucky grin, but the words were warm and sincere.

His eyes snapped to Natalia as she hugged Banner. Banner was smiling affectionately at her. Maybe he had a thing for her. Natalia dragged Banner into the circle as she talked quietly with him, then pointed them at each other. “Bruce, this is James Barnes, James, this is Bruce.”

Bruce smiled nervously at him and shook his right hand, his eyes flicking to his left briefly. He was wearing long sleeves, but no gloves to hide the black and chrome metal. “Right, you’re Steve’s friend. Is it Bucky or James?”

He really didn’t know how to answer that and tripped over it for a moment. “Bucky. She’s the only one who calls me James.” Natalia’s eyes softened at that and he realized he’d made the right choice. He liked that they had special names for each other, names only they used.

“Cool. Steve said you studied engineering?”

That was the last thing he’d expected to be asked and he tilted his head curiously for a moment, his eyes unconsciously going to Steve for help. Steve must have heard the question because he was watching him, but he gave no indication to the answer. He wanted him to remember on his own.

“Honestly, that’s news to me,” he said, unable to hold back a grimace. Bruce shifted awkwardly and the group got quiet. “My memory’s not so great.”

“Yeah, he said he wasn’t sure what you’d remember,” Bruce said slowly. “You know, neuroscience isn’t my field, but I could do some research for you. See if there might be ways to get things back.”

Something light fluttered in his chest and he realized that it was hope. “Yeah. I’d really appreciate that, anything you can come up with.” He could feel everyone’s eyes on him, but his gaze met Steve’s. “I want to remember.”

“Cool,” Bruce said, sounding a little more confident. “I’ll let you know what I dig up.”

The pizza arrived then and they spread out around the common space, some of them at the dining table, some on bar stools at the counter, Sam was lounging on one of the couches facing them to talk to Steve. He picked at the pizza initially, always wary of food he hadn’t watched being prepared, but everyone was eating fearlessly, including Natalia and Steve, who he trusted. He pushed past his reservations and ate a little faster.

He kept his eyes on Natalia and Steve, measuring their wellbeing, their reactions to others, their appetites. Steve was giving so much of himself to hold him up and Natalia too. He worried about him bottling things up and breaking under the pressure. He would need to find a way to help him through this too. Maybe Sam could be an ally with that. He seemed to have Steve’s best interests at heart and he hadn’t missed Sam’s tone as he offered himself as a workout partner, nor his mentioning of his work at the V.A. Maybe he had a background that would lend itself to helping Steve cope. He’d gotten him through the last month, after all, and from the hints that had been dropped, he gathered that that had not been an easy time for Steve.

Natalia seemed to be holding up well, or at least she was good at appearing that way. He imagined she didn’t want Bruce or Sam to know what had happened on the mission and she was doing a good job of keeping them in the dark. He doubted it would hold up forever, remembering Stark’s assertion a lifetime ago that _we’re going to know eventually anyway._ The Avengers seemed to be a tight-knit group, too tight-knit for secrets, especially secrets that four members already knew.

All of the people began to make his skin crawl. There were too many eyes, too many voices. When he’d finished his pizza, he brushed his fingers over Natalia’s, then got up and made his way past Steve. “I’m going to catch a shower.”

“Alright. See you later.”

He waved goodbye to everyone else, giving Natalia a lingering look that she returned, then escaped into the elevator.

“Your floor, Sergeant Barnes?” the AI asked.

“Yeah.” His voice had gone hoarse again and he realized that it wasn’t just about wanting to get away from the crowd. He also needed to cry again, pathetic as that was.

He did cry some more in the shower as he washed away last night. He’d cleaned off the blood when they got to the safehouse, but that was it. He hadn’t refreshed from killing, or from seeing Natalia so battered and broken. He’d needed that refresh and he should have taken it at the safehouse. It felt good now, though, and he reveled in it. When he was finally cried out, he reflected that it was pretty great that the water never seemed to get cold in the Tower, despite it being such a large building serving so many people. It was still blazing hot.

He dried off, shaved, and arranged his hair so that it would dry in normal places, something he hadn’t worried about as the Soldier. It was probably a good sign that he worried about it now. Knowing that he was sleeping with Steve and Natalia tonight, thank god to Steve for thinking to ask her about that, he dressed in a tank-top and sweatpants. He didn’t want to hide his arm from them. They should remember how dangerous he was to them, that he wasn’t just _Bucky_ or _James_. He was also the Soldier.

He planted himself on the couch, enjoying the silence and thinking. He could really use a drink and regretted not stealing some of Natalia’s vodka on the common floor. On impulse, he said, “Jarvis? Stark orders things from you. Is that something I can do too?”

“Yes, Sergeant Barnes, though I am limited in what I can provide.”

He snorted at that. Translation: don’t ask for weapons. “Okay. Can I get a bottle of vodka? Natalia’s brand.”

“I will have a bottle sent to you tomorrow, sir.”

“Thanks.”

He shut his eyes and just thought for a long time, pulling on threads of memories, trying not to think about Natalia’s bruises or the sight of her running makeup. He thought of his sister Rebecca, tried to conjure up images of the boyfriends he’d scared off, or helping her with homework. Nothing new came, he just kept staring at her across the dinner table, but he kept pulling just in case something came loose.

“Sergeant Barnes?” Jarvis said, cracking open his reverie.

“Yeah?”

“Ms. Romanoff has requested you join her and Captain Rogers on his floor.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. As nice as the quiet had been, he needed them. “Thanks, Jarvis.”

Steve was on the brown couch with Natalia draped across his lap when he entered Steve’s floor and he made his way for them. Steve had changed into a t-shirt and sweatpants and Natalia into sleep shorts and a tank-top. They both looked up at his approach and both just barely smiled. “Hey,” Natalia said softly. “Thought maybe you’d fallen asleep.”

“Just needed the quiet.” He made his way around the couch and sat beside Steve. Natalia lifted her feet and he sat beneath them, taking one in his hands to massage once he’d sat. Natalia shut her eyes and moaned. Steve chuckled at that, but he didn’t let them distract him, just worked her muscles and bones in a way that he realized he knew well how to do. He took advantage of the moment to take stock of Natalia’s injuries. Her wrists and ankles were no longer raw, pink lines the only remaining evidence of the zipties. The bruises he could see had already turned green, healing quickly. She had always healed abnormally quickly, he realized. He looked up to meet Steve’s eyes, which had gone serious. He had also been assessing her.

“Boys. Stop staring at me,” Natalia said teasingly. “If you’re going to stare, at least be sexy about it.”

Steve sighed and said, “Sorry, darling. Didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“And I will not be making sex eyes at you,” he added. “Seeing as we barely remember each other and all.”

Natalia opened her eyes and stroked her foot up and down his thigh. “I remember enough, _liubymij_. You’re welcome to make sex eyes at me anytime.”

That almost made him smirk and she must have known because she did smirk. Steve brushed a kiss to her temple and murmured, “How about me?”

“Well, that goes without saying.” She turned her head and kissed Steve on the mouth, long and sweet. His mouth went dry and he couldn’t look away, though it seemed wrong to watch them. It was painfully sexy, though, sending the blood from his head southward. He hadn’t imagined watching Steve kiss Natalia would turn him on, but it did.

Steve broke the kiss, blushing bright red, and shot a guilty look at him. He cleared his throat awkwardly and asked, “You tired, love? Or do you want to watch a movie or something?”

Natalia stuck out her lower lip in a pout he’d be powerless to resist. “I was enjoying the entertainment just fine.”

Steve looked at her seriously. “Nat, after everything…I don’t want to push you. I’m sure Buck doesn’t either.”

She looked to him then, still pouting, and he shrugged. “He’s right. I’m not about to push.”

“It’s not pushing if I ask for it,” she said. A shadow passed over her face then, and all the teasing and confidence evaporated. “But maybe you’re right. Forget it.” 

She made to move her feet to the floor and escape, but he locked his hands loosely around both feet. “Hang on, love,” he said gently. “Where are you going?”

Natalia bit her lip, not looking at either him or Steve. “This isn’t right. I told Steve I wouldn’t expect anything more and I’ll hold to that.”

Fuck.

“Hang on, now, darling,” Steve said firmly. “I don’t want you any less. That isn’t what this is about.”

“I hurt you. I hurt you both. And Pietrov’s hands were all over me…”

“Come here, _malen’kiy pauk_,” he said, cutting off whatever bullshit she was about to spin and dragging her off of Steve and into his lap. He didn’t know if what his gut was telling him made sense, nothing he thought seemed to make sense lately, but he did it anyway. He wrapped his arms around her, hands stroking her spine, and locked his lips with hers. She had stiffened when he grabbed her, but now melted into the kiss. She tasted of vodka and smelled of raspberries and bergamot and it was so Natalia that he was instantly drunk on it. Her hands found his shoulders and he parted her lips, sneaking his tongue in to taste her better. She whimpered softly and he stroked her tongue with his, his hands tightening on her back to pull her closer. He ran his hands up and down her back, trailed his tongue along her bottom lip, and she moaned. He ate it right up, kissing her harder and faster, his hands wandering to her sides, her hips, her thighs. God, he loved her skin, loved her lips, loved her hands.

Steve’s hands were on his, then, his fingers winding between his as he ran them up her back. It should have been strange, but it wasn’t. Steve’s voice was low and rough when he asked, “Share?”

He broke the kiss then and helped Steve pull Natalia into his lap, not even giving her a chance to open her eyes before claiming a kiss for himself. He was drowsy from the kiss, but slid his hands from under Steve’s and let them wander back down to Natalia’s waist, then lower to her thighs. She whimpered again, one hand going to grip the back of Steve’s neck and the other to grab onto his wrist and keep his hands on her. He obliged, running his hands down her legs and back up. She must have just shaved because her legs were perfectly smooth, her skin like satin. He trailed his right fingertips teasingly along her inner thigh, just to see, and she moaned, her hand gripping his wrist tighter. He brought his hands back up to her waist, then, slipping them under the hem of her tank-top and skimming them along her skin. She shivered and one of Steve’s hands went to her lower back, taking advantage of the skin he’d exposed.

“Share?” he said hoarsely.

Steve took one last greedy lick inside her mouth, then lifted her up and set her back on his lap. Before he dove into the kiss, he dragged her tank-top over her head and she let him, leaving her there in her sleep shorts and her bra, a little black thing that lifted her breasts in a way that made his mouth water. He kissed her again, getting lost in her, and sensed more than he saw or felt Steve’s hands on her, running over her taut muscles, grazing below and above her breasts as she whimpered. The hand that hand been on his wrist tangled in his hair, pulling him in for a deeper kiss, slanting his mouth to hers.

“Feeling better, darling?” Steve asked softly, his voice still deep and a little slower, like he was drunk on her kisses too.

“I feel like the luckiest girl in the world,” Natalia answered between kisses.

“It’s not luck if you deserve it, beautiful,” he said to her, breaking the kiss. 

Her eyelids were heavy but she opened them, her green eyes shimmering in the dim light. A little smile graced her lips and she said, “I deserve two amazing supersoldiers taking turns making out with me?”

“Yep. And it’s my turn,” Steve said, dragging her back into his lap. She giggled before he put his mouth on hers, devouring her. 

For a moment, he just watched them, mesmerized. When his brain reconnected, he wanted to be in on it again. He slid his hands over her skin, pulling a moan from her when his thumbs drew lines beneath her bra. Before he could suggest it, she reached behind and unhooked the bra herself, slipping it off and tossing it in the general direction of her tank-top. He and Steve groaned in the same moment and one of Steve’s hands went to her left breast while his went to her right. She arched her back into them and whimpered, the noise so damn sweet. He groaned again and rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, drawing another whimper from her. Then he couldn’t resist anymore and bent his head to kiss along the side of her breast. For all her teasing that day they remembered each other, he hadn’t touched her like this in decades, hadn’t touched anyone but her since the War. He was starved for it, his skin humming with desperation. He tugged her breast into his mouth, loving her soft flesh against his tongue, against his lips, under his teeth. A jolt went through her and she gasped. He didn’t let up, sucking on her and kissing her. When he teased her nipple with his tongue, she cried out and Steve groaned, “Right there, Buck.” He obliged, teasing her mercilessly as her fingers wound into his hair, pinning him there. He trailed his fingers down and back up her thighs, causing her to moan. When he bit down lightly on her breast, she threw her head back and cried out again. “You close, doll?” Steve asked. He looked up to see her face, her eyes screwed shut with pleasure as she nodded. It was enough to nearly undo him. He chose that moment to suck on her again, his fingers teasing at her inner thigh, and she cried out, her muscles going taut under his hands. Her cry was cut off and he knew that Steve was kissing her through it, drawing it out longer. Her pleasure was infectious and his nerves sang with need. 

When her muscles went slack, he laid a final kiss on her breast, then laid his head on her chest, just enjoying the warmth and softness of her. Steve must have released her from the kiss, because he could hear her gasping for air as her fingers carded through his hair over and over.

They lounged like that for a while, peppering her with occasional soft kisses, hands sliding over skin not to tease but to soothe. Eventually, Natalia dozed off in their arms. He sat up then to recline against the back of the couch, his hair wild and his eyes bleary from pleasure and drowsiness. He couldn’t stop his hands from roaming over her, though, couldn’t give that up when he needed it so badly.

“I’m glad she didn’t choose,” Steve said softly, his hand very softly stroking Natalia’s right cheek. The left was pressed to his chest. “This is pretty great.”

He certainly thought so, but it surprised him that strait-laced Steve agreed, especially when he was probably going to get Natalia to himself eventually. He didn’t want to think about that right now, though. He just wanted to think about this amazing woman in his arms and his best friend sitting next to him. “Yeah. Yeah it is.”

“Are you going to sleep tonight?” Steve asked knowingly.

He sighed. “I’m tired enough, but probably not.” He hesitated telling anyone about his weaknesses, but then he remembered Steve holding him as he broke down in the elevator, how much he appreciated that and how it had felt so natural, like they’d comforted each other plenty of times before. “I get these fucking awful nightmares and now…now she’s going to be in them too.”

Steve extracted his arm from between them and slung it over his shoulder, his hand falling over his metal arm. He met Steve’s eyes, so sincere and familiar. “If that happens, we’re here for you.”

He nodded, breathing a sigh he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Thanks.”

“Of course. To the end of the line.”

“To the end of the line.”


	11. A Troubled Sleep

When he and Buck were about to join Natasha dozing on the couch, Steve gave her one last kiss on the forehead and scooped her up, carrying her to the bedroom. Bucky went ahead of him, shutting off the living room lights and pulling back the covers on the bed. As Steve laid Natasha in the middle of the bed, he looked up and caught Bucky staring at the picture he kept on the nightstand, a candid shot of he and Bucky laughing together, both in uniform and with cigarettes in hand. It was black and white, but didn’t fail to capture Bucky’s crooked grin or the indulgent way Steve was looking at him. He even remembered the joke Bucky had been telling, a dirty one about a dame serving beer to a group of men of different nationalities, all ridiculous caricatures. The Bucky of today was frowning sadly and reached out to trace one finger along Steve’s face. “You know, for being at war, we look pretty happy.”

“We were,” Steve answered, sitting down on the side of the bed. Natasha was still out cold, thankfully. She needed the sleep. “I still remember the joke you were telling when that photo was taken, but I don’t think I’d be able to retell it. I’d mess up the punchline.”

“I don’t remember it,” Bucky said sadly. “I do remember the taste of cigarettes, though. Jarvis? Can you send me some cigarettes to go with my vodka?”

“Certainly, sir. Any particular brand?”

He raised an eyebrow at Steve, probably wondering if he still smoked. He hadn’t before the serum, it was something he picked up during the War after he was no longer in danger of an asthma attack. He did occasionally now, mostly when he was missing Bucky and the rest of the Howling Commandos. He felt so damn alone some days, had felt especially alone after Natasha disappeared, though Sam had tried his best to help him through it. “Whatever Steve smokes. I don’t remember the brand.”

“Very well, sir.”

“I’m glad you seem to be getting used to Jarvis,” Steve said. “He scared the crap out of me when I first came here. No offense, Jarvis.”

“None taken, sir.”

Bucky shrugged, sitting down on the side of the bed opposite Steve. “It’s still pretty weird to me, but it’s nice too. There are a lot of things that have changed that are nice.”

“I like the Internet,” Steve agreed.

Bucky nodded, his eyes far away. “The weapons are better too.”

That chilled Steve. He hated thinking about Bucky’s time as the Winter Soldier, hated that he’d been used and tortured that way and that Steve could have prevented it if he’d found him after he’d fallen from that train. But he hadn’t. Bucky’s steel-blue eyes snapped to meet his like he’d heard his thoughts and he said, “It’s not your fault, Steve.”

“You were my best friend,” he said, his voice weak with sadness and guilt. “I should’ve found you. If I’d been the one to find you and bring you in…”

Bucky shook his head, cutting him off. “Don’t do that to yourself. What’s done is done.”

In that moment, Steve hated how far away he was and reached across the bed, over Natasha. Bucky took his hand and he squeezed hard. “I missed you so damn much.”

Bucky grimaced. “Me too, pal. I wish I remembered more.”

“You will.”

He laid down then, Bucky doing the same, and pulled up the covers over them. He rolled to face Natasha and Bucky and laid one hand on Nat’s shoulder. Bucky laid his metal hand over his, his jaw hard and his eyes guarded. “You know, you should really be armed around me,” Bucky said softly.

His stomach rolled over and he shifted his hand to twined his fingers with Bucky’s. “You’re not going to hurt me.”

“I’m programmed to hurt you,” Bucky said. His voice was rough with emotion, possibly self-loathing. Steve hated that, wished he could wash it all away. “If I were to relapse…sometimes I wake up and I don’t know where I am or who I am. I wonder where my handlers are or why I can’t remember the extraction point. My mind feels foggy, like it always did when I went awhile between them using the chair or putting me in cryo.”

“That was your brain healing,” Steve said, trying and probably failing to keep the anger out of his voice. He wanted to kill everyone who had been involved with Bucky’s time in captivity, every handler, every scientist, every technician. “That was you starting to remember.”

“I know that now, but I don’t know that right away. It takes a minute to come back, and when it does…” Bucky trailed off and shut his eyes. He tried to retract his metal hand, but Steve tightened his grip.

“You’re not going anywhere and you’re not going to hurt me or Nat. That part of your life is over and you’re not going back.”

“They’re looking for me, Steve.” The words cut right through him, voicing the fears that had been in the back of his mind, whispering horrible things, since Bucky pulled him out of the Potomac. “You know they’re looking for me and they’re not going to stop. I was their best asset and they spent a lot of time and money making me that. They’re not going to let it all go to waste. They need me now more than ever.”

“They’re not going to get you,” Steve said firmly, his jaw turning to iron. “Not while I draw breath.”

“See, that’s the thing, though. They’d love to kill you.”

Not a surprise. “They’ve been trying to kill me for seventy years. Let them come.”

Bucky sighed in defeat. “You always were a punk.”

The pet name was exactly what he needed to push the ugly thoughts to the back of his mind where they belonged. “You wouldn’t have it any other way, jerk.”

Bucky snorted, but didn’t smile. Steve hadn’t seen him smile once since he’d gotten him back. He only had memories of it, memories and photographs to prove that Bucky had ever smiled. He squeezed Bucky’s hand one more time, then they both went quiet.

He eventually fell into a fitful sleep knowing that Bucky was still wide awake and when he woke, shaking and chilled from a nightmare he couldn’t remember, Bucky’s hand was on his shoulder and he was murmuring to him. “Shh. You’re okay. You’re safe with Natalia and I. Go back to sleep.”

And, with Natasha’s soft warmth in his arms and Bucky’s hand on his shoulder, he fell back to sleep.

\----------------

S_he was dancing on the stage at the Bolshoi Theatre, two thousand sets of eyes on her. She was naked and dripping blood from her feet, which were bleeding from blisters and missing nails, her toes broken into odd angles. Her hands were dripping blood too, but it wasn’t hers. As she twirled around the stage, pain arcing up her nerves from her feet, she saw scattered around her bodies, so many bodies. Some of them were enemies she’d killed. Vankov. Pietrov. Madame B. Karpov. Some of them were other ballerinas, young widows that had never left the Red Room. Regina. Lilliana. Danae. And some were friends. Nick Fury. Tony. Bruce. Maria Hill. _

_ Steve. James._

_ They were lying side-by-side, as if they’d been together when they were cut down. Blood oozed from a gash in Steve’s throat too deep and too wide to heal and his blue eyes were wide open, foggy with death. James’s left arm had been wrenched backwards and torn from the metal shoulder socket, wires and jagged metal showing in the yawning gap left behind. There was a knife in his back, jammed between his ribs and into his heart. It was the knife she’d used to cut off Pietrov’s hands._

_ She danced on, unable to stop as the crowd roared. Tears blinded her and she cried out, but couldn’t stop dancing or reach out to her fallen friends and lovers. _

_ There was a _thunk_ that knocked the air right out of her, but she still couldn’t stop dancing, even when she looked down and recognized one of Clint’s arrows buried in her chest._

_ Her right ankle rolled under her and shattered, sending her to the floor, but she continued upward as if it were intentional and began to spin on her left foot, her destroyed right leg arcing upward behind her. Pain pulsed through her faster than her blood, faster than the oxygen in her cells, racing along her nerves, and she was sobbing, screaming, seeing their faces every time she turned…._

Natasha jolted awake, eyes wide, and reached for her handgun. Her heart skipped a beat when her hand was caught by James’s and arrested in mid-air. Her eyes snapped to his face no more than eight inches from hers. His eyes were dark in the dim bedroom, the shadows under them violet bruises, his brow creased with tension. He held her gaze for a long moment, then slowly lowered her hand to his lips to kiss her knuckles. “You’re safe,” he whispered. “We’re safe. Steve’s asleep on your right.”

She snapped her head to the right to look over her shoulder. Sure enough, Steve was fast asleep there, a crease of worry between his brows, one hand on her hip.

She hadn’t hurt them, hadn’t hurt anyone. And she was fine too. She wiggled her toes to be sure and they were perfectly fine. She breathed a sigh of relief and sagged onto the bed. James lowered her hand to the bed between them, his fingers wound into hers. He was being painfully careful with her and she realized that it was because he was using his left hand. “I’m not afraid of you, you know,” she said, her voice hoarse from sleep.

James quirked an eyebrow up. “As you wake from a nightmare reaching for your gun?”

“You weren’t the monster in my dream. You never are.”

His eyes dropped to their hands and he very gently stroked her knuckles with his metal thumb. She wondered if he had anything resembling nerves in his arm. It would be good for his dexterity, but inconvenient to the mission if he could feel pain. In the moment, she wanted to know if he could feel the warmth of her hand, if he had that kind of comfort to draw upon. “You’re not a monster either,” he finally said.

Now she raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”

He met her eyes again and nodded. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead that was so damn soft and sweet, it had her shutting her eyes against impending tears. “You’re an angel. An avenging angel.”

It might have been corny if it wasn’t meant so sincerely, but he did mean every word and that meant the world to her.

He laid back down, closer to her now, close enough that it only took the smallest of adjustments to tangle her legs in his and to rest her forehead against his, their noses brushing, their breath mingling. Their eyes fell shut in the same moment and they both began to relax again, soothed by each other’s presence.

Steve mumbled something in his sleep and shifted closer to her, wrapping himself around her and tangling his feet with theirs. His arm stretched from her hip up around her mid-section instead, his hand coming to rest on James’s ribs. Natasha opened her eyes to smirk at the altered circumstances and James snorted. “He’s such a punk.”

They shut their eyes again, wrapped up in shared warmth and comfort, and Natasha heard James drift off to sleep right before she did.

\-----------

The Soldier awoke to smothering warmth, not the icy cold he knew so well. It was strange and the strangeness brought him to immediate wakefulness. He opened his eyes wide and was shocked to find Natalia Romanova lying beside him, sleeping peacefully.

Natalia Romanova. Natasha Romanoff. Black Widow.

_What the fuck?_

They must be working together on a mission. They had before, he was sure, though something vague told him that didn’t align with his most recent orders.

There was a hand on his ribs, not her hand. It was a male hand. With a jolt, the Soldier realized that beyond Natalia Romanova was Steve Rogers, Captain America, also sleeping peacefully.

That sent him scrambling out of bed and to his feet, his arm whirring as he clenched and unclenched his fists in agitation.

_What the actual fuck?!_

The Soldier’s right hand closed around the gun on the nightstand and he backed up to the wall, minimizing his blind spots. He clocked the large windows hidden behind blackout curtains, the ajar door through which stretched a comfortable-looking dwelling space. Something about the couch caught his attention and held it, but he dismissed it as a distraction.

_This is wrong. Something is very fucking wrong._

_Fucking Jesus Christ, fuck, I’m compromised. I’m fucking compromised._

He’d blacked out. It happened all the time, massive chunks missing from his memory, shrouded in darkness. Sometimes muffled cries of pain resounded in his memory, sometimes voices he didn’t recognize or names he immediately forgot. Sometimes a series of numbers, repeated over and over, that didn’t seem to have any meaning but which he managed to hang onto. 32557038.

This time, though, this time was especially bad.

_They’re going to wipe me. They’re going to put me IN THE FUCKING CHAIR and wipe me._

_They’re going to punish me first._

What would it be? The electro-shocks to his muscles, one at a time, making him twitch and convulse, burning his skin? Dislocation of his joints? Breaking of his bones? They’d once broken every bone in his legs when he’d purposely missed an extraction, tried to escape of all foolish things. He hadn’t forgotten that.

_Fucking Jesus fucking Christ…._

“Sergeant Barnes?” a cool British voice said out of nowhere. He whirled in panic, seeking out the source of the voice. “You seem to be in distress. Can I help?”

“Who the fuck is Sergeant Barnes?” the Soldier asked hoarsely.

“James.”

Natalia Romanova. Natasha Romanoff. Black Widow. Her searing green eyes were wide and staring at him. She hadn’t moved an inch, but she was wide awake and trained right on him. He wasn’t fooled by her calm demeanor. He knew what she was capable of, knew that it would take her perhaps a second and a half to be out of the bed and wrapped around him, beating on him, taking his gun and bringing him to his knees. “You in there, James?” she asked, her voice cool and composed.

His whole body shuddered and the arm whirred, his hand clenching and unclenching. His right hand still gripped the gun, finger on the trigger, safety off. “Who the fuck is James?” he asked, confused by how stressed his voice was. He wasn’t meant to show emotion.

_They’re going to PUT ME IN THE FUCKING CHAIR._

Steve Rogers Captain America’s hand was beneath hers now and he didn’t miss how her fingers applied a little extra pressure to it. “James Buchanan Barnes,” she said matter-of-factly. “Most people call you Bucky. You’re a Sergeant in the U.S. Army, a sniper, a war hero. You’re also Steve’s best friend and my former lover. We met in the Red Room and snuck around together right under Karpov’s nose. Sound familiar?”

The Soldier’s eyes flickered in panic between her burning green eyes, eyes he _knew_, and Steve Rogers Captain America’s arm, which had gone taut with tension. “You’re trying to trick me. It’s what you do. You’re a Widow.”

“I’m not a Widow,” she said, her voice like ice. “I’m _the_ Widow. And I am your superior officer right now, Soldier, so I order you to stand down.”

He shook his head slowly. _Don’t believe her. Never believe her. She’s a traitor and a liar._ “You’re trying to trick me. You compromised me. It won’t happen again.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “No, it won’t.”

That was the only warning he got. In the next instant, she was on him. He got the gun up, but she was already there with her legs locked around his hips, snapping his wrist back to send the gun flying. He wound his metal hand into her hair and yanked her back, prying her off of him, but she twisted in a way that should have been impossible and got underneath him, sending him face-first into the edge of the bed with a kick. He got himself turned over and his knee up before a buzzing charge clamped onto his metal arm. The prosthetic whined in distress and clamped up as the charge rippled through the wiring. Distracted by it, he didn’t manage the kick he’d planned in time and she had her thighs around his neck, pinning him down. Then, she twisted again, locking him into a chokehold with her legs. He lashed out with his human arm and got in a slap that cracked her head to the side, but then another hand locked around his wrist and slammed his arm onto the floor. Captain America pinned down his arm and legs, his face contorted with emotion, tears in his perfect blue eyes. “Fuck,” he groaned. “Bucky, come on. Get out of there. You’re not him anymore.”

_Choking. Choking. Need air._

_I’m going to fail. I’m going to fail and…_

_WIPE HIM. START OVER._

He was panicking, thrashing beneath them, struggling for even the tiniest weakness, but there was none. The Black Widow’s face was like marble with concentration despite the rising bruise on the side of her face. _That one is marble._ Captain America was utterly compromised, weeping like a child now, but refusing to budge in his hold on his limbs.

The voltage to his arm ceased.

His brought it up, locking his hand around the Black Widow’s throat. She didn’t blink, though Captain America screamed something he didn’t hear. His ears were ringing, his vision blurring. Then, the Black Widow had the gun in her hand….

_Failure. She’s going to shoot me. At least I won’t go to the fucking chair._

The butt of the gun slammed him in the temple.

Blackness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for that, but it had to happen. I promise the next chapter will be up asap!


	12. A Kill Switch

Steve paced back and forth, back and forth along the corridor of the medical bay. He couldn’t stop staring through the floor-to-ceiling windows at Bucky in his hospital bed, unconscious and hooked up to enough sedatives to tranquilize a horse as the medical team worked on the damage Natasha had done to his neck, wrist, and head, as well as the glitches now present in the metal arm. Not far away was Natasha, who had a purple bruise coloring the entire left side of her face and a plastic collar wrapped around her neck to support her throat as it healed slowly, having been nearly crushed by Bucky’s metal hand. She too had an IV and was mostly unconscious, full of sedatives and painkillers.

This was so fucked up, so fucked up. He should have done something, should have done more, but it had happened so damn fast. Natasha had had Bucky, _the Soldier_, on the floor in the blink of an eye and he hadn’t gotten there in time to prevent the vicious slap she got. Then, she’d had to choke Bucky almost to unconsciousness, but not in time to avoid his arm regaining power. Bucky had nearly killed her, could have easily crushed her throat, snapped her neck in his metal hand. Thank god Natasha had had the gun in her hand, ready to knock him out if needed.

He was wrapped up inside his head, panicking, hating himself, praying, when Tony emerged from the medical bay where he’d been bothering the team working on Bucky’s arm. He looked a little manic and deeply upset, even guilty. “I fucked up, Cap,” he said as he joined Steve to stare into the medical bay. “I fucked up so bad.”

“You? You had nothing to do with this. I’m the one who fucked up.”

Tony shook his head, his hands over the lower half of his face. “No. I fucked up. He asked for a kill switch for the cybernetic arm. The day he was in for the paint job, he made me take scans of it and told me to figure out a kill switch we could implant in it, something permanent the Soldier wouldn’t be able to remove. I did it, meant to install it when you guys got back from the mission, but everything was so fucked up last night, I let it go, thought I’d do it today.” He groaned, shaking his head again. “I should’ve done it right away. He’d have wanted it right away and then this wouldn’t have happened.”

A kill switch? Bucky had wanted a _kill switch in_ _his arm._ It wasn’t far off from what Hydra and Department X had been doing to him, taking his control over his own body away from him. No wonder he hadn’t told Steve. He wouldn’t have wanted the decision questioned until after it was done. Steve groaned and buried his head in his hands. “God damn it. I can’t believe…it’s not your fault, Tony. I would have fought him on it if he’d given me the chance.”

Tony gestured to the medical bay, his eyes on Natasha. “This is evidence that he was right. He needs it.”

Steve groaned and looked up again, eyes on Bucky’s unconscious form, on the team drilling into his arm. “He told me this could happen. He said he sometimes wakes up disoriented, thinking he’s the Soldier. He said it passes, but it scares the hell out of him. He had the gun there I think for Nat and I, in case we needed to stop him.”

“Jesus,” Tony hissed.

“What are we going to do?” Steve asked, feeling utterly helpless.

“We’ve already done something,” Tony said, his voice firm, no room for argument. “They’re installing the kill switch now.”

Steve whirled on him, suddenly furious. “What? He doesn’t get a say?”

Tony turned to glare at him fiercely. “He had a say, Steve. He’s the one who _asked _for the kill switch. If he wakes up as the Soldier, we’ll need it and if he wakes up as Barnes, he’ll feel much better knowing it’s there, especially once he sees Red in that fucking collar.”

Steve wanted to argue, was built to argue, to never back down, but Tony was right. Very rarely did he admit such a thing, even to himself, but Tony was right. He shut his eyes and exhaled in defeat, bowing his head. “I don’t know what to do. He’s not going to forgive himself for this.”

“He’s only been back a few weeks and most of that was on that damn mission you guys _had_ to go on,” Tony said wryly. “He’s only been out of Hydra’s hands for, what, a month? Month and a half? He needs time to recover, to remember, to quiet the Soldier. I’m kind of amazed that this didn’t happen sooner.”

“But he’s not the Soldier. He’s _Bucky_,” Steve said, frowning at Tony’s words. Bucky had been doing so well. He’d known him in Bulgaria, had taken the chance to come in, had even _hugged him._ And since then things had been progressively better, at least until the last few days. “He’s always been Bucky.”

“No, he hasn’t,” Tony said, shaking his head. “You don’t get it, Steve. They wiped his memory, brainwashed him. By the time they strapped that arm on him, they would’ve made sure he was barely _human_, and he certainly wasn’t _Bucky._ He was their tool, their weapon.” He snapped his fingers for effect. “Wake up. He hasn’t been Bucky for _seventy years. _Bucky may have been who he started as and that’s hopefully who he’ll end as, but the middle? That was the Soldier.”

Steve frowned deeply, his stomach rolling with disgust and horror at the images that came to mind of Bucky, a mindless weapon in Hydra’s hands, for _seventy years_. And now, when he was clawing his way back to being Bucky, he kept slipping back into that hole, back into the Soldier. “Are you thinking he has multiple personalities?”

Tony shrugged. “Maybe. A psychologist could confirm it, but that’s the only explanation that makes sense. This morning and all those other mornings, what if he literally _was _the Soldier? Just like when he was fully under Hydra’s command and he _was _the Soldier. Maybe when he recognized you, it broke through the conditioning, broke something loose that was _Bucky_ and he ended up in an in-between state where he didn’t know who he was. What if that’s why he went off the map? He didn’t want to be found until he figured that out.”

“He was destroying Hydra bases…”

“Well, yeah. Even the Soldier knew that they’d hurt him, maybe better than Bucky did. The Soldier wanted to destroy them as much as Bucky did, he just didn’t have the mental freedom to do it before you showed up and made him decide to go rogue.”

Steve shook his head, bewildered. He knew next to nothing about psychology. It wasn’t something that was studied or even really understood in his time, but apparently it was important now. Especially important now because it was personal. “How the fuck am I supposed to deal with that? How do I help him?”

“I don’t know,” Tony said. “Like I said, I’m not a psychologist. But the Soldier and Bucky are both there for a reason. Maybe it’s just that the Soldier’s hanging around because he’s used to being there. Maybe he’ll never go away. A lot of people develop multiple personalities to protect them. At least that’s what the movies say.”

“What does that mean?”

“They offer relief from trauma,” Tony explained softly, shutting his eyes. Steve’s stomach dropped. Of course. Everything that had been done to Bucky and everything that the Soldier had been forced to do was threatening to destroy him as he remembered. No wonder he was so fragile, no wonder he was hardly sleeping. He was remembering. “His brain is trying to cope with the reality of what he went through. Whatever you know about who Bucky was, he was only human and what happened to him is more than a normal human should be expected to cope with. The Soldier isn’t human, not really. He can deal with it, he can protect Bucky from the things he doesn’t want to remember.”

Realization struck Steve and he looked to Tony in amazement and horror. “That’s why he wakes up as the Soldier. He’s waking up from nightmares.”

Tony hissed in distaste. “Of course.” He turned to look once more into the medical bay. “Maybe we can do something about that. Get him a good psychologist, a therapist, some sleeping pills. They must make something for nightmares. They make a pill for everything these days.”

Steve bristled, thinking of all the medications he’d been under as a kid, feeling so helpless and pathetic that he needed to rely on chemicals to live. “Do you think that’s right?”

“Honestly? I’ve done enough self-medicating to know that sometimes that’s easier than what’s in your head,” Tony said grimly. Then, he turned and headed for the door. “I’ll start Jarvis searching for some shrinks. You know where to find me.”

“Thanks, Tony,” Steve said weakly. When Tony had gone, he leaned against the wall and slid down it until he was sitting on the cold floor. 

\---------------

Natasha hated doctors, hated needles, hated IVs, hated drugs of any kind, hated all things _medical_. She felt groggy and sick most of the day and when a technician came to give her another dose of medication, she all but bit his head off, sending him scurrying away with wide eyes. In frustration, she tore the tape off her IV and slid it out, grabbing a bandage off the cart nearby to stem the blood oozing from it. She stumbled getting out of the hospital bed and was grateful to at least have the dignity of being in her sleep shorts and tank-top, not a hospital gown. She was braless, but after the number of times she’d changed in and out of her tact suit on the quinjet, it was nothing anyone at the Tower hadn’t seen before, except maybe Sam. 

She stalked towards the door of the medical bay, glaring at all the doctors she passed, but stopped cold when she saw James. He was still unconscious and had a bandage at his temple where she’d gotten him with the butt of the gun. He also had his human wrist wrapped, she must’ve over-extended it when she knocked the gun out of his hand, and there was angry purple bruising across his throat where she’d choked him.

Guilt washed through her and she approached the bed tentatively. She’d done this. She’d nearly killed him. He’d fought her too, but she’d done a serious number on him, not holding back at all, save for not shooting him. He’d said she wasn’t a monster, but Steve had been crying his eyes out when they’d had to pin James down and she hadn’t batted an eye, had handled him like a mark.

_Like a mark._

Steve and James were _not_ marks.

The door opened and shut quietly and then Steve’s comforting hand was on her shoulder. “Hey,” he said softly. “You should be resting. When those painkillers wear off, you’re going to be miserable.”

“I don’t like drugs,” she said, leaving no room for debate. Her throat hurt like she’d swallowed acid, but she wasn’t about to admit to it. “Is he going to be okay? Why is he still out?”

Steve sighed miserably. “He’ll be okay. He’s in better shape than you. They just finished working on the arm and now we’re waiting for the sedatives to wear off enough that he wakes up.”

She frowned. “Did the taser disk cause permanent damage? He didn’t crush my throat, it seemed weaker than normal.”

Steve shuddered at her cold assessment. “Thank god he didn’t. It caused some major glitches, probably saving your life, but it was nothing Tony’s team couldn’t fix.” He sighed and when he spoke next, his voice was tight with tension. “They also installed a kill switch.”

She spun on him, betrayal coursing through her. She knew what it was like to have your choices taken from you, to have your body under someone else’s control, and she knew James knew that feeling all too well. “Excuse me? Why the _fuck_ did they install a _kill switch_?”

Steve shook his head wearily. “I fought it too, but apparently Bucky asked Tony to design it when he got his paint job. Tony hadn’t finished it until we were already gone on the mission and didn’t have a chance to install it. It’s there now.”

She hated this. Fucking _hated it. _It made her sick to her stomach, it felt so incredibly wrong. She shook her head fiercely. “I don’t like this. This is wrong.”

“That’s what I said, but Tony insisted that he wanted this. Besides, if he wakes up as the Soldier again, we might need it.”

Natasha said nothing to that, but shook her head, grinding her teeth. This was unacceptable. James was _not_ a monster. She and Steve could control the Soldier no problem and there were probably ways to recondition him to push the Soldier out, make him all Bucky, all James again. 

But…what if Bucky and James weren’t really the same person? What if James had a bit of the Soldier in him? What if the current man had a bit of the Soldier in him, a bit that he needed to be strong enough to handle all the horrible things he was bound to remember eventually? What then? Would it be right to force the Soldier out? Was that even possible?

She didn’t know. And, ultimately, it wasn’t up to her to make that call.

“We should wait for him to wake up,” she said finally. “We should be here.”

Steve nodded and turned to look to the medical staff, who were charting at a computer terminal nearby. “Hey. Can we get a couple of chairs?”

Soon, they were sitting on either side of James, each with a hand in his. Natasha held his human hand, Steve the metal one. They had silently agreed to that arrangement, knowing that Steve had a better chance of beating the metal arm hand-to-hand. Per James’s instructions, Tony had manufactured two remotes for the kill switch, tiny things with only one switch on them, right to keep the arm active, left to kill the power. Each remote was biometrically coded to either Steve or Natasha only, they couldn’t even use each other’s. They each had their remote handy in case the worst should happen, though Natasha doubted either of them would be willing to use them.

It felt like hours but was only perhaps thirty minutes before James began to stir, his eyelids fluttering. The fingers of both hands clenched and unclenched and he groaned. Natasha retracted her hand from his, not wanting to disturb him as he came to. James blinked once, then scrunched his eyes shut against the lights above. “Jarvis, dim the lights?” Steve said softly. Jarvis complied and James’s eyes snapped open, locking on Steve.

For a horrible moment, she had no idea whether it was James or the Soldier lying there.

Suddenly, he groaned again and his face contorted into a grimace. “Hey, Steve,” he grumbled. “Why do I feel like shit? I feel drugged.”

“You are drugged,” Steve said gently. “You don’t remember what happened?”

James frowned in confusion. “I…I was asleep….” His eyes snapped wide open then and locked on Steve, examining him for injuries. “Fuck. Holy fuck…oh god, I woke up as him. Fucking hell. Are you okay? What did I do?”

“Shh,” Steve said softly, his brow scrunching in worry. “Take it easy. I’m fine.”

James nodded stiffly. “Okay. You’re fine. Natalia?”

She cleared her throat and immediately regretted it, grimacing in pain. “Less fine,” she croaked.

James looked to her, horror dawning on his face. He lifted his hand, shaking as he did it, and just barely brushed her jaw with his fingertips, just below the horrible bruise she could feel there. His thumb brushed the top edge of the plastic collar holding her neck in one place and he shuddered. Tears entered his eyes and he retracted his hand like she’d burned him, horrified. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he moaned. “I am so sorry. I can’t…god, I am so sorry. Fucking hell…oh Natalia. I am so sorry, beautiful.”

She cupped his cheek with her hand and he almost flinched away, but froze at the look in her eyes. “Shh…” she soothed. “I’m sorry too. I dealt it right back…all of the pain you feel is from me.”

“To be honest, I think I’m too drugged to feel anything,” he said miserably, tripping a bit over the words. He shook his head then, his face screwing up in pain, not physical but emotional. “I can’t believe this happened. Fuck. I am so sorry.” He continued to shake his head and mumble apologies while Natasha and Steve tried to calm him, then he abruptly changed course. “Where’s Stark? He was going to build something for me. I need it.”

Her eyes locked with Steve’s and, hesitating, she showed James her other hand, which held her remote. “He installed it while you were out. Steve and I both argued against it, but he insisted that you wanted it.”

James sagged into the bed and exhaled in relief. “Thank fucking god. Good. I’m glad.”

“I’m not,” she said bitterly. He looked at her in confusion and she set the remote aside. “I know what it’s like to have your control taken from you and I know you do too. This kill switch makes Steve and I no better than Hydra.”

James shut his eyes and shook his head. “I’m sorry to put that on you, but I don’t feel that way. He’s still in there, wanting to come out, and sometimes he does. He doesn’t know who either of you are to me. He thinks you’re enemies. I couldn’t bear it….” He opened his eyes then and his fingertips stroked her jaw again. “God. I could’ve killed you. I want to die for doing this to you, I’ll never forgive myself for letting this happen. If I’d _killed _you….” His voice trailed off, rising in pitch with distress and he grimaced and dropped his hand again.

“Hey, pal,” Steve said gently, gripping James’s metal hand. “You didn’t kill either of us and you’re not going to. We’re pretty tough. And we’re going to get you help, someone who can help you sort things out in your head.” Natasha raised an eyebrow at that.

“Like a shrink?” James asked warily.

“Kind of. Tony’s researching looking for someone good, someone who can get you through this.”

James nodded stiffly. “Yeah. If they can fix this, that’s what I want.”

She had narrowed her eyes, though, thinking of the ‘shrinks’ she’d had to see when she was brought into SHIELD, the ones that scraped through her mind for information they could use or manipulated her into thinking certain people were to blame or not to blame. She stopped giving them information of any kind quickly and kept most of her memories out of SHIELD’s hands by doing so. Now she wondered if any of those ‘shrinks’ had been Hydra. “I think this ‘someone’ should be well vetted before he talks to you,” she said to James. Her voice was still terribly hoarse and painful to use, but her suspicion must’ve come out anyway because both James and Steve looked at her questioningly. She bit her lip and avoided their eyes. “When SHIELD brought me in, they made me go through these psych evals. Weeks of them, a dozen different doctors with different specialties and different government agencies paying them. They picked away at me, looking for information they could use or sell, looking for weaknesses they could manipulate or exploit. They would purposely look for triggering memories, try to find my weaknesses, try to get me off-balance so I would tell them something new. I told Clint I’d take that arrow he offered if they sent me to one more. That was the end of it.”

“That’s not what this is going to be,” Steve said firmly. He was using his Captain America voice, which meant that was his way or the highway. “This isn’t SHIELD. This isn’t the Army or Hydra or the Red Room, or anything else. This isn’t even the Avengers.” He looked to James then, his gaze solid, and squeezed his cybernetic hand. The gears whirred as James squeezed back. “You don’t belong to _anyone_ now. You can see or not see whoever you want. Tony’s going to find some candidates because he likes to fix things and he has the tech to do all the heavy lifting for him. And I have no doubt that whoever he recommends will be the best damn psychologists on the eastern seaboard. Hell, knowing Tony he’ll fly one in from God knows where if you let him.”

She rolled her eyes, recalling the first time she met Tony and his comment as she walked away. _I want one._ When he saw something he wanted, it really didn’t matter where it was or who it belonged to or how much it would cost. He’d find a way to make it happen.

James snorted, but didn’t smile. She had never seen him smile. Never. And, looking at Steve, she realized that he’d noticed it too. He hadn’t smiled once since being brought in, not even to Steve, which meant that as far as either of them knew, he hadn’t smiled since 1944. Steve’s jaw was tight and there was a glint in his eye that James had looked away from, his gaze on their joined hands instead. “It’s going to be okay, pal,” Steve said. “You’ll get this straightened out and everything will be fine.”

James’s eyes fell shut and she watched as his expression cleared exactly the way hers did when she didn’t want to let anyone in. “Yeah. Think we can bust out of here?”

“We’re waiting on you, lazy bones,” she said drily. “I ripped my IV out an hour ago.”

He opened his eyes back up to glare at her. “You look like you could use a few days in here. Sound like it too.”

“I heal quickly.”

“Not from a half-crushed trachea,” Steve said, clearly annoyed and worried.

James flinched at the words and she quirked an eyebrow at Steve. “Yes, Mother Hen, actually I do. Now, let’s go.”

She turned on her heel and headed for the door then, listening to the mayhem behind her as James ripped out his IV and a few other things that had been tracking his vitals. Steve was trying to slow him down and keep the flock of medical personnel out of the way, but from the sounds of things, James had had enough. She imagined he felt much the same about medical settings as she did.

When you’d spent as much time as they had strapped to a metal table, needles in your arms, needles in your neck, needles in your head, you didn’t trust the nurses anymore. IVs? She’d had enough of those, enough of shit in them she couldn’t see, shit that burned through her veins or froze them solid, shit that made her heart race or all but stop. Heart rate monitors? She’d heard the way they blared as they played around with her mind and her heart and her nerves. Sedatives? Fuck that. She wanted every ounce of control she could get. She didn’t want it dulled or inhibited in any way. If she wanted to feel things a little less, that was what vodka was for and nothing else.

And pain?

As she stepped into the elevator, she unsnapped the collar around her neck, then gingerly tested her muscles by tipping her head. Pain arced up all around her neck, up and down her spine, but she could breathe as she did it. As the elevator doors closed, she palpitated her throat. Dull, throbbing pain.

Pain told her how much recovery time she needed.

On her floor, she shoved the collar into the trash. If she didn’t twist her neck too much, she’d be fine by tomorrow. The bruises would be gone in three days.

She took a hot shower and dressed in jeans, a loose black sweater, and a luxuriously soft black infinity scarf that was just the right size to hide the bruises on her neck without making her in the least uncomfortable. Her favorite concealer easily covered the bruising on her face, though it stung to apply. She hadn’t been slapped that hard since Lilliana had dealt her a brutal one in the Red Room. The concealer did the trick, though, as it always did. The rest of her bruises, a light green today, were hidden under her clothes.

As she began arming herself with her Bites, knives, and a garrote, knowing it would make her feel in control and would give James peace of mind, she checked the time. Nearly four already. “Jarvis?”

“Yes, Ms. Romanoff?”

“Please inform security and Tony that Clint will be here by dinner. He’ll need garage access.”

“Of course, Ms. Romanoff.”

Thinking of dinner, she took a contemplative swallow and winced. Eating would be difficult. “And Jarvis? Tell the boys that dinner is on my floor tonight.”

“Yes, Ms. Romanoff.”

Dressed and armed, she shook out her damp hair, deciding to let it dry loose and curly, and went to the kitchen. Her sedatives and painkillers had worn off, so she poured a glass of vodka, then began rifling through the refrigerator and pantry, placing ingredients on the counter as she found them. Fortunately, most of her favorite comfort foods involved ingredients that didn’t spoil quickly. Cabbage, carrots, potatoes, onions, beets, canned beans, celery, bell peppers, garlic, beef broth. Jarvis was thoughtful enough, or programmed well enough, to have her favorite produce restocked every few weeks, so all of her produce was still good from the delivery right before Budapest.

“Is there anything I can have sent up for you, Ms. Romanoff?”

She grabbed the sour cream from the fridge doubtfully, checked the date, then opened it. It was still sealed. “I have everything I need, Jarvis. Thank you.”

“Very well, Ms. Romanoff. I will alert you when Mr. Barton arrives.”

“Thank you, Jarvis.” She began chopping vegetables, then had a thought and added, “Jarvis? You know that bakery I like…”

“The _bakery that makes the pampushki_?” the AI asked, quoting her the last time she’d made the same order.

She grinned. “Always one step ahead of me, Jarvis. Yes. Order me some?”

“Gladly, Ms. Romanoff.”

\-----------

After he showered off the stench and feel of being in a medical facility, full of fucking _sedatives_, he stood in the bathroom glaring at himself in the mirror. “You in there?” he growled at the Soldier. “I know you’re in there and I want you out.”

He wasn’t going anywhere, though. _It._ The Soldier was hardly even a man.

_I was a man when I fell in love with Natalia. And yet, I did the Soldier’s work. I was deemed the Soldier by Department X’s standards. I was capable of love. I was worth loving, or at least she thought so then. And I killed people. Tortured people. In that same time._

Had she been in love with the Soldier? Was that even possible? Or had she seen tiny shreds of Bucky peering out?

He rubbed his eyes, then returned to glaring at the mirror. “What you did to Natalia…that’s not going to happen again. I put a fucking kill switch in _this fucking thing_.” He raised his left arm emphatically, then for good measure flipped off his own reflection. “I’m not going to let you hurt her or Steve again. Got it? They’re the mission now. We protect them. That’s it. That’s the mission. This is my body, I’m in charge now, and I’m telling you, that’s the mission. We protect them. Got it?”

His pupils were huge, black pools surrounded by blue irises and bloodshot whites. The shadows around his eyes only made him look crazier, but he didn’t give a fuck about that. He was crazy. He had the fucking Soldier living inside his brain, taking over when he was weakest.

“Sergeant Barnes?” the AI said.

He sighed and hung his head wearily. God, he was tired. But sleep meant nightmares and it meant waking up as the Soldier and that was the last thing he wanted. “Yeah, Jarvis.”

“Senior Airman Wilson is requesting that you meet him at the gym.”

_What the fuck?_

“You sure about that? No crossed wires anywhere?”

“I can assure you, sir, my wires do not ever get crossed.” The AI sounded peeved, if that was possible. It was almost enough to make him smirk.

He sighed, feeling too weak and pathetic to argue with a computer, or with a human for that matter. “Fine. Tell him I’ll be right there.”

He dressed in some workout gear he found in the closet and running shoes that had been set out next to his boots, then headed for the elevator, eyes trailing along the photographs on the wall as he went. He didn’t know where the gym was, but Jarvis did and Jarvis was in charge of the elevator, so he dropped him at the right place.

The Avengers’ gym was massive, tall enough to take up several floors and open, providing tons of space for sparring. A boxing ring took up one corner and another housed a pair of treadmills, a weight system, and punching bags. Sam was stretching on the mats near the treadmills and looked up at his arrival with a smile. “Hey man. Didn’t know if you’d show, but I thought I’d try.”

“Yeah, well, I figured it’d be good to get out of my head for a bit,” he said, too tired for lies.

Sam nodded in understanding. “I was thinking of getting in a run, maybe some sparring or boxing if you’re up for that.”

He couldn’t help raising an eyebrow doubtfully and raised the metal arm. “You sure that’s a good idea?”

Sam snorted and shrugged. “I think you’re in control of it enough not to knock my lights out.”

“I haven’t sparred with anyone since I was the Soldier.” He distracted himself by stretching his leg muscles, one group at a time. “I don’t know who you’ll be fighting.”

Sam grinned. “We’ll box then. Put gloves on you. That oughtta slow him down. And you haven’t seen _me _spar. I’m no Captain America, but I bet I could give you a run for your money.”

He shook his head and sighed, hating this idea so damn much. “Your funeral. Can we at least grab someone else to supervise? Stark, maybe?” Natalia and Steve would be too occupied dealing with this morning and Budapest in their own ways.

Sam got up from the mats. “Actually, I’m surprised Steve isn’t down here. You guys didn’t do too well at hiding how badly that mission of yours went and he likes to punch things to deal with his issues. Let’s do some running and see if he shows up.”

That didn’t surprise him at all for some reason. Maybe Steve had always been one to bottle things up. Supposedly, Bucky would know. Too bad Bucky wasn’t in charge of his mind enough to tell him. “Fine.”

They went to the treadmills and started running. Sam kept glancing at his speed setting, so he kept it close to Sam’s so as not to make it a competition. He felt like he could have pushed it much higher, but didn’t wanted to piss him off. They’d gone almost a mile before Sam asked, “So what the hell happened? Natasha was quiet and Steve looked like he’d been to hell and back. And you weren’t any better, Mr. Badass Assassin. Did it get ugly?”

“You could say that.”

“I don’t mean to push, man. I just worry about Steve. And you and Natasha. I was pissed that you all took off without me. Don’t like not being able to help.”

He thought of those days of horrible waiting, knowing Natalia was with those monsters, knowing the danger she’d willingly put herself in. “Yeah, I get that. Natalia got hurt. She’s good at hiding it, but Steve and I…we should have done more. Done something to prevent it.”

Sam laughed once without humor. “I’d face the Winter Soldier again before I got in Natasha’s way. She does her own thing, man. Steve’s told me a lot about her work for SHIELD and the rumors of what she did before. I think she’s always been one to do things her way.”

So, she had been free in her way. That gave him some peace of mind and a bit of pride to know she had gotten out of the Red Room and the KGB, and also that being out meant she’d made her own way. “Good. She earned the right to do that.”

Sam shot him a look that he ignored. “I can imagine working with the Russians had its drawbacks,” he said, prodding for more. He wasn’t going to give him more than Natalia had, though. Those were her secrets to keep. When he didn’t answer, Sam kept quiet for another half a mile. “I’m sorry to hear she got hurt. She hid it well, but that still sucks.”

A mile and a half later, Sam asked, “So, do I want to know how you got those bruises on your neck? You didn’t have ‘em last night.”

He sighed, debating whether to tell him or not. It wasn’t something he wanted to discuss openly, but then again, everyone in the Tower deserved to know what they were dealing with. He was dangerous to be around, especially to spar with as Sam wanted to. “The Soldier broke out. Natalia and Steve managed to fight him down and knock him out, but it apparently involved Natalia nearly choking him to death. Now I get to deal with the bruises and the pain.”

Sam whistled. “Jesus. Are they alright?”

Guilt washed through him, wrenching his guts into a knot. “Steve doesn’t have a mark on him. I got Natalia pretty good though, nearly killed her.”

“Jeez, man. You know it wasn’t you, though. Right? It was the Soldier.”

He shut his eyes in pain and shook his head. “It was still me, though. My hands. And I’m still not strong enough to control my own mind.”

“It’ll take time, man.” Sam went quiet for a while, then said, “You know, I work with guys at the V.A. who come back with all kinds of issues. Some of them, they can’t adjust to civilian life. They still watch for enemies everywhere, still clock exits, still walk around armed to the teeth. They have flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks. They react badly to people getting close to them or moving suddenly, even people they love. I worked with a guy once who almost strangled his wife when she woke him up from a nightmare. It takes time. You have to talk through it with someone, have to get used to being around people, have to learn your limits and make sure your loved ones know them. It’s not easy, but guys do it. You can’t blame yourself, you can only find a way through.”

“Maybe. Steve has Tony looking for a shrink for me.”

“That’s a good idea. Get someone you can talk to, someone who maybe knows how to help you deal with the Soldier.”

“I worry that he’ll never go away.”

Sam was quiet for a while, then said, “Maybe that’s not the worst thing. He’s a pretty tough guy. The things we do…they’re risky, dangerous. Sometimes people get hurt, like Natasha on that mission. Who do you want on their six? Bucky Barnes or the Soldier?”

“The Soldier,” he said without a doubt. Then, realizing what he’d said, he rethought it. “I don’t remember Bucky all that well yet, though. He wasn’t so bad. I know he was a sniper, a damn good one. He taught Steve how to box. Kicked some Hydra ass. And he was loyal, endlessly loyal. The Soldier was obedient and that’s not the same thing.”

“The Soldier did everything to make the mission successful, though, right?” He nodded. The Soldier had literally done everything and anything to make the mission successful. He’d gone days without sleep. He’d gone days without food or water. He’d killed people who got in the way. He’d even disobeyed minor orders in order to ensure the major ones were carried out. Sam nodded. “See? So, what if the mission was the same as Steve and Natasha’s? Or what if the mission was to protect the team?”

“He’d do anything to make that happen.”

“Exactly. And the Soldier knew everything Bucky Barnes did and more. He learned things, plenty of things. Couldn’t he learn loyalty too?”

He frowned, unsure whether to be disturbed or intrigued by this conversation. “Maybe. I don’t know. In any case, I can’t control when he takes over.”

Sam looked to him then. “Maybe one day you could. Bruce can turn on the Hulk. He did it in the Battle of New York.”

That was a good point. If the Hulk could be controlled, why not the Soldier?

“I apologize for interrupting, Senior Airman Wilson and Sergeant Barnes. Ms. Romanoff has asked me to inform you that dinner will be on her floor this evening.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Black Widow cooks?”

“Yes, Ms. Romanoff cooks quite regularly,” Jarvis replied primly.

Sam laughed. “For an AI, he’s got a lot of personality.”

Before he could reply, Jarvis jumped in. “I will take that as a compliment, sir.”

He snorted and Sam laughed again. “We’ll be there, Jarvis.”

Ultimately, they decided not to box but to take turns with the punching bag. He wore a boxing glove on his metal hand to keep from destroying the bag, but it still packed a punch. Eventually, Steve did join them as Sam had said he might and he watched Steve and Sam spar. Steve fought like a very quick boxer, primarily relying on his upper body. When Sam got within easy reach of his legs, though, he jumped, locked his legs around Sam’s waist, and twisted, landing on his feet while Sam tumbled sideways onto the mats. “Where the hell did that come from?” Sam cried out in dismay, rolling and rubbing at his shoulder as he got up from the mats.

He couldn’t help a low chuckle of pride. “That is a classic Black Widow move. Who said an old dog can’t learn new tricks?”

Steve beamed as Sam groaned. Then Sam grumbled, “I want to know where the hell _she_ learned to fight like that. It’s insane.”

He replayed Steve executing that move over and over. It had obviously been learned from Natalia, but seeing it performed by a man was familiar. Why was it familiar? He frowned deeply and, on a whim, he stepped forward into the sparring space. “Let me try it.” Steve and Sam both looked to him in surprise and he held up his hands. “I don’t want to spar or box or anything. I just want to try that one move. It seems familiar for some reason.”

Both men raised their eyebrows in surprise and Sam was the first to speak. “I’m not interested in being the recipient of that again, but I gotta see it.”

Steve sighed and braced himself, hands up out of reflex to block any blows. “Fine. Give it a go, Buck.”

He stepped up to about the distance from Steve that Steve had used and flexed his muscles. They were still warm from running and from the punching bag, ready to go. He thought through the motions again, then met Steve’s gaze. Steve nodded.

He took to the air, locking himself around Steve and wrenching his body sideways. Steve was heavy, but it didn’t feel like it in that moment. He was entirely focused on the power and momentum in his own muscles. He wasn’t even really thinking about the motions, just thinking introspectively about how it felt. It felt so familiar and so right, though he had no memory of doing it. Steve hit the mats in the same moment his feet did and he automatically wheeled on Steve, poised for a kick, arms up to defend himself from a quick response, the kind of response a rolling and leaping Natalia would give. He could picture her doing it clear as day.

That was what decided it for him and it shocked him to his core.

He forced himself out of his tense stance and realized that Steve had gotten up and both he and Sam were staring at him wearing expressions of shock. “Buck,” Steve finally said. “Did _you_ learn that from Natasha?”

He shook his head, still stunned. “No. I’ve definitely used it on her, but I don’t think there was anyone who would have taught us. I think we came up with it together.”


	13. Risks and Reassurances

Steve tried to convince Bucky to do some sparring with him in an attempt to jog any other memories of training with Natasha, but Bucky flat-out refused. The memory of what he’d done…what the _Soldier _had done…that morning was too fresh and he was loathe to risk something like that happening again, no matter how Steve and Sam tried to reassure him.

Eventually, Bucky left the gym, citing a need for a shower. His eyes were dark with pensive thought, though, and he wouldn’t meet Steve or Sam’s gaze. When he’d gone, Steve looked to Sam and said, “What the hell was that?”

Sam shook his head. “I don’t know, man. I think he’s learning, though, that there are some things he wants to remember and other things he doesn’t and he doesn’t get to choose what comes next. Sparring might bring back memories of Natasha, but it also might bring back memories of missions.”

“But…we can help him. He keeps shutting me out, keeping things from me. I know he remembers a hell of a lot more than he says, but he doesn’t share it.”

Sam quirked an eyebrow upward. “If you had done horrible things, things other people wouldn’t even imagine, would you want to share them with Captain America of all people?”

That stung, but he remembered what Bucky had said about Natasha not wanting to share her dark side with Steve and the way Bucky’s eyes had darted warily when he’d said it. It was true. “But…I’ve never been Captain America to Bucky. He followed me into war because of who I was to him before the serum. He told me more than once that he didn’t give a damn about Captain America.”

“That was before all his memories of pre-serum Steve were wiped away,” Sam pointed out. “And I’ll bet he doesn’t remember those conversations you’re talking about either. He knows how highly you think of Bucky, but he’s not all Bucky anymore and he knows that too. Those are big shoes to fill, Cap.”

Steve’s stomach was churning with guilt and worry. “But…I’m just happy to have him back. I want him to remember everything from before the train, I want that for him, but I don’t need that. I just want him to be happy. Yeah, people change. I’ve changed. I’m not at all the same guy who went into the ice. But he’s my best friend.”

Sam shrugged. “Maybe you need to tell him that. ‘Cause he’s sure not thinking it.”

Steve went back to his floor to shower and give Bucky a little time to decompress. Then, he headed for the elevator. “Jarvis? Could you let Bucky know I’m coming to him?”

“Certainly, sir.”

Bucky’s floor was purposely only one away from his, so it only took a moment to get there. When Jarvis let him off the elevator, he moved slowly onto the floor, eyes peeled. “Buck?”

“Hey Steve,” Bucky said from the kitchen, his voice weary. Steve went around the corner to the kitchen, where he found Bucky leaning on the counter, a tumbler of vodka in his human hand. He’d been a bourbon man when Steve knew him, but bourbon had probably been in short supply during his time as the Winter Soldier. He was dressed in black jeans, the Soldier’s combat boots, and a dark blue t-shirt that did absolutely nothing to hide his bulky muscles or his cybernetic arm, which was leaned on the counter in full view. His eyes were guarded and his hair was sticking up at odd angles like he’d purposely let it dry that way. Until this point, Steve had noticed that, since the haircut, his hairstyle rather strongly resembled Bucky’s from during the war when pomade was a luxury they didn’t have. Whether it had come from the pictures of wartime Bucky around the floor, muscle memory, or genuine memory, Steve wasn’t sure, but it had been reassuring. That was gone now. Bucky had clearly been putting in some effort to look like his previous self, but had dispensed with it today.

“Hey Bucky,” he said, moving to stand across the counter from him. “Did Jarvis tell you that dinner is on Natasha’s floor?”

He nodded, but didn’t respond verbally. He was still guarded to the point of being prickly. It was like he was purposely displaying himself as _not _Bucky. Maybe he was.

“Listen,” he said, taking in a fortifying breath and looking down at Bucky’s hands, one human, one machine. “I was thinking about today and there’s something I wanted to tell you.”

The gears in the metal hand whirred as it clenched into a fist and Bucky actually glared at it for betraying his emotions. Steve reached out then and laid a hand over the metal fist. Bucky stiffened and stared down at their hands.

“I think you’ve been putting a lot of pressure on yourself to remember things and to be Bucky as I remember him to be, which is pretty noble, but I wanted to tell you that you don’t have to do that for me.” Bucky’s eyes shot to his, rapt with attention. “People change, especially people who’ve been through as much as you and I have. When I came out of the ice, I was a different guy than the one that went in and I’m still changing. Working with Nat changed me. The fall of SHIELD changed me. Getting you back changed me. I don’t expect you to be the same guy I remember from 1944.”

Bucky’s shoulders sagged a bit and his eyes dropped back down to their hands. “I appreciate that, but….who I am now…I’m too dangerous. I almost killed Natalia today. She played it off, but I could tell she was in a lot of pain. I won’t let that happen again.”

That uncompromising tone worried him instantly. “What exactly are you going to do to prevent that from happening again?”

Bucky’s eyes were like ice, a look that completely belied his almost flippant tone. “Well, I’m not going to fall asleep with either of you again, that’s for damn sure.”

Steve’s blood was running cold and his heart was starting to race. Bucky had always been selfless, particularly when it came to Steve, but he’d taken risks after Azzano that Steve could never have imagined. He’d killed men much better armed than him, he’d scaled buildings with his rifle on his back to reach enemy sniper posts, and he’d taken bullets and knife wounds fighting recklessly. Steve had reamed him for it a dozen times, but it hadn’t made an impact. He’d just gotten the same steely stare he was getting now. Once, Steve had asked Dum Dum whether Bucky had been like that before Azzano and Dum Dum had immediately shaken his head, his eyes going dark and haunted. _No, Cap. The scared boy who went into Azzano never came out._ _I don’t know what he went through in there, and I’m glad I don’t. Sometimes I think he doesn’t want to live with those memories. _“That’s not what you had in mind, though, is it?”

Bucky broke his gaze and took a long swallow of vodka. He didn’t even flinch. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

It was the same response he’d always gotten, whether it was when Bucky collapsed on the couch after pulling a double shift at the docks or when Bucky had jumped from a treetop to land on a Nazi, crushing him into the dirt and picking up his bayonet to fight off his comrades with. He’d very nearly gotten himself impaled making that jump, not to mention what would have happened if he’d miscalculated and broken a leg in the middle of a mob of Nazis. 

“Yeah, you do,” Steve said, letting his jaw settle into stone, and raised his eyebrows at Bucky in a challenge. “And I’m not going to let you do it. I need you. Nat needs you. You told us you weren’t going anywhere.”

Bucky glared at him sharply. “You need me like you need a hole in the head, Rogers. I am the fucking _Winter Soldier_. Did you forget that? A month ago, I put bullets in you and I was one strike from beating you to death. A _month_ ago. And now you give me access to your living space 24/7, you actually have me in your bed with you and Natalia like you think that’s a good idea, you and Sam want to spar with me…it’s like you’ve all forgotten who the fuck I am. Maybe I was Bucky once. I look like him. I have a few of his memories. But I’ve been the Soldier a hell of a lot longer than I’ve been Bucky and the Soldier is hell-bent on being in charge again. He knows you as a mark and Natalia as a traitor and he knows that people have been messing with his mind, so he doesn’t trust anyone as far as he can throw them.”

“Bucky, come on, we’re not afraid of you. Yeah, the Soldier is a big part of you, but we all have our own strengths too. We can take care of ourselves.”

“Maybe if you’re _expecting _the Soldier you can. But it only takes a certain smell or a certain word to bring back memories of Bucky. I’ll bet the Soldier’s the same way. So, what happens when something random triggers the Soldier and all of a sudden, he’s standing there right next to you and you don’t know it until he’s got a hand around your throat?” Bucky abruptly retracted his hand from under Steve’s and used it to polish off his tumbler of vodka. He was wearing one of the Soldier’s fingerless gloves and therefore had no trouble gripping the glass. He slammed the tumbler down on the counter nearly hard enough to shatter it. “And if you’re going to delude yourself into thinking that’s not a risk, let’s back up to the fact that Hydra is still looking for me. If they find me and bring me back in, you’re going to very seriously regret the last couple weeks. They’ll make me tell them everything and they’ll use it to send me after all of you.”

“Buck, take it easy…”

“No, Steve!” Silence echoed in the wake of his shout. His eyes were blue-steel blades now shining with unshed tears. “They’re going to fucking _wipe me again_ and turn me back into their weapon. And when they do, the first orders they give me will be to kill you. Then it’ll be Natalia. And then it’ll be to bring down this building with everyone else inside. Tell me I’m wrong!”

Steve moved around the counter then and grabbed Bucky by the shoulders, giving him a shake to make him listen. “You aren’t going anywhere. This Tower is one of the most secure places in the damn world. They can’t get you here and if they tried, they’d have the Avengers to fight through. That’s why you and Nat are locked up in here. So you stay _safe_ and don’t risk yourselves like idiots. I’m very aware that you’ve only been away from Hydra a month. That’s why I’m telling you that you need to give things a chance. See a psychologist, talk to a therapist, talk to Nat and me about the things you do or don’t remember. Yeah, the Soldier is still in there. You can learn to control him. You just need time to try and you’ve got all the time you want because you’re safe here. Do you hear me?”

Bucky whipped his arms around, knocking Steve’s hands off him. “You don’t fucking get it! We’re talking about fucking Hydra! They got into SHIELD. They got into Department X. They infiltrate every damn thing and then they rot it from the inside out until it’s just them. If you think they aren’t looking at this monstrosity of a Tower with the fucking ‘A’ on the side as the place where they can find you, you’re an idiot, and you can bet they know you want me as bad as they do. They’ve probably already got people on the staff here. If they’re not on the upper levels, they’re definitely in Stark Industries. This is Hydra! Nowhere is safe from them.”

Steve wrapped his arms around him them and buried Bucky’s face in his shoulder. For a moment, Bucky stiffened and tried to break away, but when Steve didn’t budge, he shattered and sagged into Steve, clutching at his back. Now that he wasn’t being glared at by someone very much resembling the Soldier, now that he was holding Bucky in his arms, tears leaked from Steve’s eyes and ran over his cheeks. He dug his fingers into Bucky’s back and hair and just held on. “Right here, Buck,” he murmured as Bucky shook silently. “Right here is safe. No one’s going to touch you while I’m here. No one.”

\-----------

“Ms. Romanoff? Mr. Barton is on his way up.”

Natasha closed her laptop and tucked it in the end table drawer she kept it in. She’d been doing a little work on the web she was using for the human traffickers and the last thing she wanted was for anyone, particularly Clint, to know she was already back at that. She was moving back into the kitchen when the elevator chimed and the doors opened.

“Smells like borscht. Did you get those papushkin things?”

“Hello to you too,” she said, smiling as Clint walked into the kitchen, looking travel weary. He stripped off his leather jacket and hung it on the back of one of the bar stools, then set his laptop bag on the counter. She eyed the bag hopefully. “Presents for me?”

“Always.” He unzipped the bag and pulled out a stack of drawings, some in crayon, others in marker, and a few in watercolor. “There’s also a love letter from Laura in there. She says you have to come visit soon.”

Warmth bloomed in Natasha’s chest as she paged through the drawings from Lila and Cooper. Some were of the Barton family, some of their dog, Ace, and some were of one kid or another with her, the red hair making her identity obvious where the stick figures weren’t clear enough. Her throat went tight and her eyes burned. “God, I miss them.”

“So come visit. You know you’d be welcome to hide out there until everything blows over. Laura about killed me when I told her you had disappeared.” Clint shuffled his feet a bit and stared at the vodka bottle. She moved to fill a glass for him, then top off her own. Clint grimaced, but drank it. “Some of us like to drink things that don’t taste like death,” he remarked. Then he sighed and his eyes flicked over her as she carefully hid the drawings in a nearby drawer. She knew all of her bruises were perfectly well hidden, but his eyes lingered on her face, the scarf, and her wrists anyway. “I wish you had come to me. I wanted to be there for you. It was killing me not being able to help you.”

“You belong with Laura and the kids. It’s good that you got out. You don’t need me making a mess of things for you.”

“I knew you’d say that.” His eyes had gone back to the scarf. “So, what happened to your neck?”

She gave him a dry look. “I can’t wear a scarf without it hiding an injury?”

Clint narrowed his eyes. “No, you can’t, especially not when there’s a half a pound of makeup on your face. Show me.”

She glared at him, but carefully unlooped the scarf and set it on the counter. Clint immediately rushed to her, his fingertips on her jaw as he examined her throat. “Christ, Tasha. What did…this is a handprint. This is a fucking handprint.”

“It’s fine,” she said, cutting him off. “I neutralized the threat and it’s healing. Nothing some borscht and vodka can’t fix.”

The elevator chimed.

Clint raised an eyebrow and released her, growling, “You ‘neutralized the threat’? I hope that means you cut that hand off and fed it to him.”

“Not exactly,” James said, his voice tight as he and Steve wandered into the kitchen, eyes wary. 

Clint looked to them, clocked the metal arm, then whirled on her. “Tash. You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I’m fine, Clint.” She looked to Steve and James, then, who both looked the worse for wear. Steve was obviously emotionally raw, his eyes betraying him as usual. James looked stiff and guarded, his arms crossed with his metal arm out like a shield, his eyes like blades and his hair wild. He was wearing his combat boots and his fingerless glove on the metal hand and those, combined with the fact that the arm was exposed by his short-sleeved t-shirt, made it very clear what he was thinking and doing. When she met his gaze, he immediately looked to the floor and she remembered that she’d taken off her scarf at Clint’s behest.

In a moment, she was across the kitchen, cradling James’s face between her hands. He still wouldn’t look at her and actually stiffened at the contact. She examined his head, which had mostly healed, and his throat, which was still badly bruised, probably as badly as hers. She ghosted her fingers over the bruising, eyeing it carefully for signs of permanent damage, then carded her fingers into his hair. He shut his eyes and leaned into her touch just a tiny bit. She stood up on her toes and kissed his temple where she’d cracked him with the gun. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

His closed eyes tightened and he shook his head. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m glad you did it. If you hadn’t….” He cut himself off, grimacing to hold back emotion.

“Shh,” she whispered, petting his hair and the side of his face to soothe him. “I’m fine. You lost control. It’s going to happen. It’s nothing to worry about, though. We have the kill switch now and Steve and I did just fine without it.”

“It’s not fine…”

This conversation had happened before. She remembered handprints on her skin, his lips ghosting over them as he whispered over and over _It’s not fine._ They had sparred together and he had lost control, allowed more power in the arm than he’d intended. It had hurt, but only for a moment. Then she was sitting on the mat, cradling him as he turned into a sobbing heap in her lap. 

“Shh, _liubymij._ It is fine.” Before he could argue the point, she kissed him on the mouth, completely ignoring Steve right next to them and Clint behind her. They didn’t exist in that moment. It was just her and James. He didn’t respond at first, but she trailed her tongue along his lower lip and he gave in then, kissing her back very softly, very slowly. She could work with that. She let him set the pace, but used her tongue to tease his mind back to her, the brush of her lips on his to soothe him. When she finally had him leaning into her, wanting more, she maintained the pace that he had set and kept teasing, stealing his breath. When she placed one last gentle kiss on his cheek and stepped away, he was barely holding himself upright and his pupils were massive with desire. “What is it, _liubymij_?” she asked softly.

“It’s fine,” he whispered, his voice raw. 

She smiled warmly at him and went back to the kitchen counter for her scarf and her vodka. As she turned, she heard Steve groan, “_Christ_.” Clint was glaring daggers at her and had apparently spent the time she’d been kissing James draining his vodka. She glared right back, daring him to press the issue. He didn’t, at least not verbally.

Thankfully, it was only a few tense minutes later that Sam arrived in the elevator with a six-pack of beer because _I can’t drink that embalming fluid, man._ Clint gratefully accepted a beer. Tony and Bruce weren’t far behind, Tony bearing his favorite over-priced whiskey. She put on a pot of tea for Bruce, who never drank. Everyone was pleasantly surprised to see Clint. Sam was meeting him for the first time and they hit it off, talking eagerly together. James avoided Clint and Bruce carefully, at one point accepting a glass of whiskey from Tony and talking to him under his breath. She raised an eyebrow at that and she caught Steve watching it too, but apparently it was a private discussion. 

The _pampushki_ arrived shortly thereafter and she checked that the borscht was done, which it was. They ate together, some in the kitchen and some at the little dining table. Steve and Tony had had her borscht before and liked it and Clint had practically lived on it at one point in their friendship, but it was new to the others. Bruce loved it. Sam took each new bite with confusion on his face which only deepened. It was an odd dish for someone with a very American palate. After one bite, James stiffened and his eyes went right to hers. She raised an eyebrow questioningly at him, but he said nothing, just went back to his food. Apparently, he’d had her borscht too, not that either of them remembered.

When she went to the sink with her empty bowl, Clint joined her, flipping on the water and whispering to her under cover of it. “_That_ is the worst fucking idea you’ve ever had.”

“_That_ is probably what kept me alive in the Red Room,” she said coldly.

Clint stared at her in surprise. “You knew him then?”

“Yes. They wiped it from both of us, but there are enough pieces to know what happened.”

“How does Steve feel about that?”

She turned off the water and moved naturally to Steve’s side. He was standing at the kitchen counter talking to Bruce and she slipped her hand into his back pocket as she leaned into him. The muscles of his ass were rock-solid and were actually enough to make her mouth water with desire. Steve automatically dropped his arm around her and laid his hand on her hip. Bruce gave her a lingering look, but didn’t let it trip him up as he talked to Steve about his time in Costa Rica. Steve had never been farther south than Italy and he seemed eager to hear everything about Costa Rica and the other exotic places Bruce had been. She listened to the conversation, glancing back at Clint when it was natural to do so. His eyebrows were almost to his hairline.

\--------------

The borscht had been wonderful and strangely comforting. Maybe it fell into the same category as the tea: things that are good but don’t make sense. It was a smaller category than things that are bad but don’t make sense.

Now, he was in the corner of the kitchen watching everyone while he sipped his whiskey, which was also strangely nice. Natalia had just sidled up to Steve and put her hand in his jeans pocket, which made him feel warm inside to see. There was also the bonus of Barton’s eyes nearly popping out of his head when he saw that. Stark and Sam, who were picking over the last of the _pampushki_, either didn’t notice or weren’t surprised.

Clint Barton, Hawkeye, was Natalia’s best friend, the man who pulled her into SHIELD rather than kill her for them. His opinion mattered. And right in front of Barton, she had kissed him senseless and was now staking a claim on Steve too. It made him think of Sam’s assertion that she did things her own way.

The Soldier in him saw Barton as a clear enemy, which was all the information he needed to make his next move.

The next time Barton’s eye, which seemed to see everything, moved his way, he locked his gaze. Barton immediately moved into his corner, taking a pull on his beer as if this were no big deal. “I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot,” he began.

“Yeah?” Barton said, eyes on Natalia. “I think I know everything I need to about you.”

“Good.” He turned then so no one would read his lips and, eyes on Barton’s said, “Then I can trust you to kill the Soldier the next time he shows up?”

Barton held his gaze for a long time while the wheels turned in his head. “Nat said something about a kill switch.”

“A kill switch that either she or Steve could press to turn off the arm.”

Barton shut his eyes and sighed. “I see. You don’t think they’re going to use it.”

“No, I don’t.”

Barton looked to Steve and Natalia again, then took another pull of his beer. Finally, he said, “I have weapons of my own that would disable it temporarily.”

“Natalia used a taser disk this morning. It bought her enough time to almost knock me out, but as soon as I got it back, my hand was around her throat.” His eyes sought out Barton’s and the other man met them. “You saw the damage I did. I don’t want that to happen to anyone again, least of all her or Steve. I’m asking you to use lethal force.”

Barton narrowed his eyes. “I don’t exactly want to be the friend who killed her sometimes lover.”

“But you’d rather that than be the man that let her get hurt or killed.”

The archer shut his eyes and sighed deeply. When he looked to him again, he extended his right hand. “I believe I misjudged you, Barnes. We did get off on the wrong foot.”

He accepted the offered hand and shook it. “Is that a yes?”

“Yes.”

Relief swept through him. _Thank god._ “If Hydra comes for me, I don’t plan to go quietly. But if they do incapacitate me…”

Barton nodded. “I’ll do it.”

He realized his eyes were actually burning and when he spoke again, his voice was strained. “Thank you.”

Barton released his hand and frowned deeply. “You do know, though, that no one here is going to let that happen. I know you don’t trust us, you have no reason to, but you can at least trust that we are all very powerful people who aren’t going to let them take you without a fight.”

“I understand that, but the first time they took me, I was literally in pieces and they took the time to patch me up and make me theirs. I heal just as well as Steve does, if not better. If I’m not completely dead and unfixable, they will find a way to use me.”

Something he’d said had struck a chord with Barton, whose face suddenly turned sad. He laid a hand on his shoulder, then, and said, “No one’s going to use you again. I promise.”

He breathed a sigh of relief.


	14. To Stay or to Go

That night, Steve watched as Bucky had hushed conversations with both Tony and Clint before kissing Natasha on the head and disappearing, citing a need for sleep Steve knew he wouldn’t tend to. Worry gnawed at him and he held onto Natasha a little tighter.

He could feel the way everyone around him shifted when Bucky came over to kiss Natasha as she stood in his arms, one hand very possessively in his back pocket. She ignored it entirely, but he noticed Clint stewing over it. Tony and Sam had gone silent somewhere behind them. Bruce completely tripped over his words and forgot what they’d been talking about. Natasha reminded him as if nothing had happened. Steve’s stomach churned, worried about what they would think of the odd relationship they had embarked on last night. It had felt so right to be with Natasha and with Bucky, to hand her back and forth, each watching the other kiss her, working in tandem to get her off, then sitting with his arm around Bucky as Nat fell asleep sprawled across both of them. He didn’t know how to justify it, though, when all conventions said that it was bizarre and wrong.

He forced himself to push it aside for now, unwilling to risk giving up what he’d gained by questioning things. Instead, he worried more about Bucky. When they were all gathered around the counter again and a lull in the conversation occurred, he looked to Tony and Clint. “So, the last time Bucky had a conversation with somebody that I didn’t ask about, he ordered a kill switch for his arm. What did he say to you two?”

Both men hesitated and looked at each other, as if debating who should respond first. Finally, Tony looked back to Steve and said, “He asked me if there was something I could manufacture that would kill him if Hydra took him back, something I could hide in the arm. I said I could probably come up with something, but that I didn’t particularly want to. He dropped it, but I don’t think I’ve heard the end of that.”

His gut clenched, but he forced himself to look to Clint, who sighed. “He asked me to kill him if the Soldier broke out again or if Hydra came for him and he was incapacitated. I agreed.”

“Clint!” Natasha exclaimed. Steve suddenly felt like he might be sick.

Clint threw up his hands. “What should I have said? I know what it’s like to have someone else take total control over you. I’d rather die than have that happen again too. The guy was practically in tears. Besides, I saw what he did to you, Nat, and we’re not doing a repeat of that.”

“Fuck,” Sam hissed.

Steve agreed wholeheartedly. As he scrubbed his hand over his face, he said, “Thank you for reassuring him, Clint, but please don’t actually kill him. Tony, any luck on the shrinks?”

Tony nodded, his face tight with tension. “Yeah, I have some names. Call someone and make an appointment tomorrow. Pull the Captain America card and get him in asap. Jarvis? Send Cap the list.”

“Already done, sir.”

Natasha rubbed soothing circles into his chest. “It’ll be okay. He just needs time to figure things out.”

“Yeah, but I’m starting to worry that he’s not going to take the time.”

That sent a ripple of unease around the room and Natasha went stock-still next to him. Sam was the first to speak, planting one palm on the counter and looking seriously at Steve. “You know him best even now. If that’s the vibe you’re getting from him, listen to it. Don’t let him withdraw. The more time he spends alone thinking about that shit, the worse it’ll be. If he needs space and he has specific things he’s going to busy himself with, training or whatever, give him space. But if he’s just going to sit on his ass thinking like he is right now, someone should be with him. We’ll help you. We can haul him to the gym or the common floor or the roof or whatever, make him move around and talk. But right now, he needs you.”

Steve nodded, steeling himself by soaking up a bit of Natasha’s warmth and strength. “Does he have a history of this?” she asked.

He nodded again. “He was always a selfless person, always working his ass off to pay for my medicine or send money to his family, but after Azzano, it got dangerous. He did all kinds of risky things to make missions successful or to protect me and the men on our squad. I yelled at him all the time for it, told him he was going to get himself killed. He didn’t listen.”

“The serum was designed to intensify whatever was already there,” Bruce said wryly. Steve flushed, remembering not for the first time that attempting to recreate the serum was what had created the Hulk. “So, if he was already selfless, the serum would have made that pretty intense. He would have very low self-worth to the point of putting everything and everyone else before his own needs.”

Natasha nodded, her eyes far away. “It fits. The Soldier did everything for the mission. It was what made him so effective. It probably made his conditioning smoother too.”

He hated that word. _Conditioning._ It made his skin crawl to think of those bastards brainwashing Bucky into not caring about his own life, not even remembering his own life. “So now that he’s convinced he’s a risk to all of us…”

Tony nodded. “That means the fact that he’s alive is a liability he can’t accept. Fortunately, he’s going to have a hard time doing anything about it with the serum in him, but he knows that. If he does something, it’ll be unhealable.”

That brought vomit to Steve’s throat and he had to choke it down, immediately picturing Bucky with his head blown off by a large-caliber slug. He released Nat and stepped back from all of them, his whiskey forgotten on the counter. “I need to go to him, talk some sense into him.”

“Have Jarvis send for me when you’re ready for me,” Nat said, her voice uneven, the best show of her being truly upset. “I’ll sit out the first part, he needs you alone for that, but don’t bench me.”

Steve nodded, already headed for the elevator. “Will do.”

Jarvis directed Steve to Bucky’s floor and gave Bucky an elevator’s ride of notice. When Steve arrived there, he found Bucky laying in the middle of the living room floor, an empty bottle of vodka within arm’s reach. “Hey, Steve,” he said weakly. “Guess what?”

“What?”

“I’m a bottle in, plus whatever I drank at Natalia’s, and I’m not drunk yet.”

Steve sighed and sank down to sit next to Bucky, who continued to stare at the ceiling. “Even Nat can polish off a bottle of vodka before she gets drunk. She claims it’s her Russian blood. I can get buzzed on two bottles of booze. Thor has a secret stash of Asgardian moonshine, though, that is strong enough to get me drunk.”

“Any chance I can get some of that?”

“Nope. He has it hidden somewhere.”

“Shame.” Bucky took a pack of smokes and a lighter out of his pocket and managed to light a cigarette without sitting up. He stuck it in his mouth and offered the pack to Steve. Steve hesitated, but accepted one and lit it. He couldn’t deny needing it and maybe it would make Bucky more comfortable if he joined him. “So,” Bucky said slowly, still without looking at him. “You almost killed yourself putting the Valkyrie in the ice.”

Steve sighed. This conversation had been bound to happen. He could tell from previous conversations that Bucky had done his homework on their biographies. “Yep.”

“I kind of want to beat you senseless for that.”

“I figured you would, but at the time you weren’t around to tell me ‘no.’” Steve shut his eyes and focused on the taste of the smoke. It was the same brand they had smoked back in Brooklyn, but the recipe had changed slightly over the years. “To be fair, I want to beat you senseless for asking Clint and Tony to help you kill yourself.”

Bucky just shrugged, still staring at the ceiling. “I don’t want to die. I want to have time to remember you and Natalia. Last night was nice. Really nice. I want more of that. But I want the Soldier dead. I _need _him dead.”

“Tony thinks a part of you needs the Soldier to protect you from the bad memories. I kind of agree with him. I think you wake up as him because of the nightmares.”

“Hmm. That’s a good point.” Bucky shrugged again, as if they weren’t talking about whether he should kill himself. “Sam thinks something similar. He thinks someday I’d be able to control the Soldier the way Bruce controls the Hulk. I don’t know. Sometimes the Hulk gets out and when he does, he kills people. So would the Soldier.”

“Did the Soldier get out when you burned those Hydra bases?”

“Sometimes. Bucky burned Azzano. That was one hundred percent him.”

It would have been. Steve’s stomach churned at the memory of finding Bucky there, reciting his serial number over and over, strapped to that table with the marks of torture all over him. _Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. US Army. 32557038._ “Do you remember Azzano?”

“Some of it.” Bucky took a long drag of his cigarette. “I remember one time afterwards when you reamed me for climbing up a watchtower by hand to kill a sniper and take his spot. I could have easily slipped and killed myself but I didn’t give a damn. I wanted that spot so skinny little Steve Rogers didn’t get a bullet in his head.”

Steve sighed. He’d figured as much. “Yeah, and how much of you wanted that spot because you didn’t care about your own life?”

Bucky shrugged. Steve was starting to want to throttle him for caring so little about this conversation. “I won’t lie, there was a part of me that was thinking that. I think I didn’t want to remember Azzano. And I felt weird, like they’d done something permanent to me. I didn’t want to find out what it was, didn’t want to live with them permanently violating me. In a way, they raped me, Steve. They raped me of my humanity.”

_They raped me of my humanity. _“God, Buck…I wish you had talked to me about it,” Steve groaned, tears in his eyes. His neglected cigarette went out. “I wanted to listen. I wanted to help.”

“I know. And I knew that then.” Bucky dropped his spent cigarette in the vodka bottle and lit another one. “I didn’t want to burden you with it. Still don’t want to. It was bad enough for me to live through it. I didn’t want you to have to too.”

“I know you keep things from me. Is that why you do it?”

Bucky nodded. “I don’t want to remember. Why should anyone else have to?”

Steve shut his eyes tight to hold in the tears. He wanted to bawl like a baby hearing all of this but that would only confirm what Bucky was thinking, that Steve couldn’t handle this kind of shit. “Do you remember what happened after the train? Do you remember the fall?”

Bucky shrugged. “I remember the fall. I remember being dragged through the snow, most of my arm gone. I remember some of the captivity, some of the conditioning. I remember waking up with the metal arm, Zola telling me I’d be the new fist of Hydra. I killed those technicians, but then they pumped me full of drugs. I’m not going to tell you what it was like, so don’t bother asking.”

He must have been so damn scared. How long had he waited for Steve and the Commandos before he gave up on being rescued? How long had he held out before they shattered his hope and his mind? Had he known everyone thought Steve was dead? Had he sat in a dark cell somewhere and grieved for him? Steve had wondered those things since he found out Bucky was alive, had felt so much guilt for not trying harder to find him, for failing to rescue him before Hydra and Department X got to him. “I hated myself for not finding you,” Steve said softly. “Ever since I found out you were alive, I’ve been hating myself for failing you.”

Bucky finally looked at him then, frowning. “You couldn’t have known I survived that fall. It’s not your fault, Steve. I should’ve been dead…I must’ve fallen three hundred feet.”

Steve shook his head vehemently. “I wanted to find your body and send you home to your ma. It was enemy territory, though, and they didn’t want us going back for you when we thought we knew you were dead. I should’ve gone back for you anyway.”

Bucky shook his head, then. “What’s done is done. There’s no undoing it, there’s only finding a way to live with what we’ve got now.”

“Yes. That’s why you’ve got to stop this nonsense about wanting to die.”

His best friend took a final drag of his cigarette, then dropped it in the vodka bottle. “Maybe. Still not convinced it isn’t more important to take the Soldier out. I can’t let him hurt anyone else.”

“We’ll find a way to deal with him. Tony gave me a list of shrinks we’re going to call tomorrow, get you an expert opinion and a plan.”

“I like plans.”

He would’ve gotten that from the Soldier. Bucky had always been one to wing it. “Yeah. A plan will be good.”

Bucky nodded, then looked to Steve. “You’re not going to leave me alone, are you?”

“Nope.”

“I’m going to wake up as the Soldier again.”

“Not worried. Natasha’s going to be here too and together we’ll immobilize him again.”

Bucky shut his eyes, obviously annoyed. “Are you at least going to use the kill switch?”

“Only if we have to.”

“You have to. He can easily crush a throat or punch through a skull with it. I still can’t believe he didn’t kill Natalia.”

Steve sighed. “We think her taser disk glitched it so it wasn’t strong enough to do its normal damage.”

“Good. The kill switch will work even better. The arm’s damn heavy too. It’ll slow the rest of him down.”

Steve groaned. “What would make you feel better about this?”

Bucky seemed to think long and hard about that before an idea came to him. “I could sleep with the kill switch on. I’d barely be able to get out of bed much less do serious damage.”

Steve hated that idea, fucking _hated _it. And he knew Natasha would be even more strongly opposed. “Nat’s not going to like that.”

Bucky shrugged. “She doesn’t like much.”

“She likes kissing you.”

“She likes kissing you too, punk.”

He needed support right now and this was a perfect segue he couldn’t pass up. “She wanted to talk to you. We could invite her down here.”

“Hmm. Maybe there could be more kissing then.”

“See? If you off yourself, there would be no more kissing.”

“That would be a damn shame. Fine, call her down here.”

“Jarvis?”

“Right away, Captain Rogers,” Jarvis said.

\--------------

When Natasha reached James’s floor bearing a bottle of her vodka and Tony’s whiskey, she found James and Steve on the living room floor with an empty bottle of vodka and a pack of cigarettes between them. The place smelled like a bar and hardly any lights were on. She couldn’t decide if the ambience was sexy or depressing. Steve certainly looked depressed and when he saw her, his face turned desperate and pleading, which meant he’d made very little headway getting through to James. Damn.

When James looked to her, his eyes went dark with desire. “Hey, doll. What’s a knockout like you doing here?”

She’d purposely gone for ‘knockout,’ dressing in an outfit that left nothing to the imagination: yoga pants and a little white tank-top, no bra. She’d done a solid job of adding makeup on her throat to hide that bruising and hoped that enough booze would make James forget about it. Unlikely, but it was good to have goals. “What are you doing on the floor, Sergeant?”

“Not used to fancy furniture,” he said, eyes still on her as she folded herself onto the floor between him and Steve. “I see you brought gifts.”

“I did. Tony was tipsy enough to forget his whiskey on my floor and I didn’t feel like returning it to him.” Tony had actually handed it to her and told her to give it to Steve, but she wasn’t supposed to tell them that. She handed the bottle to Steve, who gave her a grateful look. She took a long pull of the vodka and passed it off to James, who sat up to drink from it. He didn’t flinch at the burn of it and she smiled crookedly. “Well, well. You drink like a Russian, Brooklyn boy.”

“Apparently, I’ve had practice.” He gave her a teasing look. “I suspect you’re to blame.”

“Probably.”

“So, what did Stevie and I do to deserve a gorgeous dame like you and free liquor?”

She smirked. “I never said it was free. I expect favors in return.”

Steve raised an eyebrow at that, abruptly lowering the whiskey from his lips. “Do I want to know what kind of favors?”

“Well, you’ve already had some of that whiskey, so I’ll have to tell you what kind of favors eventually so you can pay up.”

“I have a feeling these are the kind of favors we’re going to enjoy paying,” James said slowly, eyes still black with want.

“Maybe.” She winked at him and took the vodka back. She drank deeply, then capped the bottle and set it aside. Moving slowly, but smoothly, she lifted one leg and twisted around to straddle James, her eyelids drooping and her lips inches from his. “You promised me you weren’t going anywhere and now I hear you’re thinking about breaking that promise. So, I thought I’d try and convince you to stick around.”

He leaned in to brush his lips along her cheek, the one he hadn’t struck, as his eyes fell shut. “I like the sound of that.”

“I thought you might.” She captured his mouth with hers, prodding his lips apart with a deliberate kiss along his lower lip. He let her in without hesitation and she languidly stroked his tongue with hers, tearing a groan from his throat. She swirled her tongue around his, drawing it out, then sucked on the end of it. He moaned and his hands tightened around her hips, pulling her flush against him. Her yoga pants did nothing to shield her and she could feel that he was already hard despite the amount of alcohol he’d apparently consumed. She traced his lips with her tongue and slowly rocked once against him, dragging a curse from him. His hands gripped her hips and ran slowly down her thighs and back up, his fingers tracing lovely lines along her flesh. She was getting hot already, turned on by his kiss, his touch, and how badly he wanted her. She began massaging his shoulders, then his chest, teasing at his nipples before moving lower. When she reached his waist and dragged her thumb over his hardness, he hissed and murmured, “Fuck, doll. When you want something, you go right for it, don’t you?”

“Damn right,” she said in her best bedroom voice. He shuddered and she traced his length again before going back to massaging his upper body as she kissed him senseless. When he was gripping her ass, his hands almost covering her, she flexed her thighs and ground against him again, nice and slow, rocking her hips back and forth, back and forth. He groaned another curse and his fingers dug into her, moving with her and urging her on.

When she was sure she utterly owned him, she broke the kiss. “So, those favors?” She pulled her tank-top over her head and, shooting a wink at Steve, chucked it at him. To his credit, he managed to catch it without taking his eyes off her. She looked back to James and pinched his chin between her thumb and forefinger. “We’re going to start here.” With that, she pulled his face down to her chest. He immediately followed her lead and drew one breast into his mouth. It was absolute heaven. She wound her fingers into his hair, which was just long enough to get tangled up in, and focused on grinding him as she came higher and higher, bid on by his mouth on her. She considered herself an expert kisser, but this man was quite the expert too. He teased her nipple into his mouth with his tongue, sucked her, nibbled at her, swirled his tongue around her. When he had her hard and moaning, he pulled away enough to blow on her wet skin, which sent a shiver right up her spine and her eyes rolling back in her head. “Oh fuck,” she whimpered. Then he started on the other breast, giving it similar treatment, but not the same. He wanted to keep surprising her.

His tactics paid off. She was rocking harder and harder against him, her lungs and heart completely out of her control and racing ahead of her. When he bit at her nipple a little harder than she was expecting, she moaned, “God damn.” His hands roved up her body to join his mouth, one tracing the underside of one breast to make her shiver, the other going right to her unattended nipple, twisting it and rolling it between his fingers. He seemed to have forgotten that one of his hands was made of metal and she wondered again if he had something resembling nerves in that arm. She wanted him to feel her. The hand she had in his hair tightened, pressing him to her. He didn’t seem interested in straying from where he was, but she couldn’t help making sure he didn’t consider it. The other hand was at his waist, sneaking under the hem of his shirt to draw patterns along his waistband.

When he sucked on her nipple in just the right way to make her cry out, he chuckled and asked, his voice a full octave lower than usual, “What other favors can I do for you, doll?”

She rocked against him again, deeper this time to make him groan, and, struggling for air, she answered, “Well, there is another place I want your lovely mouth.”

“Mmm, fuck. I’d be happy to do that for you, doll.”

“I thought you’d say that.”

His hands pulled her tight to him and he rolled them over, putting her on the floor while he kissed his way down her body. She brought both hands to his head, petting his hair fondly as he travelled lower and lower. She looked to Steve again. His eyes were trained on them and black with desire as he took a long pull of the whiskey. Even from here she could see that he was rock-hard beneath his jeans.

James dragged her yoga pants off her, rolling them down her legs when he got impatient with how tight they were. She chuckled at him, but broke off to gasp when he laid a kiss on her over her thong. “Fuck, you’re wet,” he groaned. “And you smell like heaven.” The words sent more heat to her core. She wouldn’t have expected him to be a talker with how quiet he was most of the time, but it was sexy as all hell. He pulled her thong all the way off and tossed it at her discarded yoga pants, then climbed back up her legs. “You’re fucking beautiful, doll,” he drawled, his Brooklyn accent there in full force. “I want you like this forever, all naked and strung out underneath me.”

She wantonly stretched her legs up over his shoulders, completely opening herself up to him. “Hmm, I don’t mind it so much myself. You going to lock me away here, _liubymij_?”

“God damn, I might.” He bent his head then and drew one languid stroke up her slit with his tongue. When the tip of his tongue caught on her clit and stayed there, holding her at the edge, she whimpered and tried to push his head down on her. He didn’t budge, instead releasing her and murmuring, “Oh no, doll. I plan to take my time. Stevie? Want to do me a favor and pin those lovely hands of hers down?”

She looked to Steve, turned on by the very idea of that. He looked like he agreed and with no argument, abandoned his whiskey to move to them. He knelt behind her head and reached down to take her hands off of James’s head and pin them to his waist. James kissed her soft and warm, then looked up at them. “Nice. Maybe put her head in your lap so she can watch.”

Steve did, gently lifting her up and shifting forward to rest her shoulders in his lap, her head leaned against his lower abdomen. His muscles were solid and she could feel his erection against the back of her neck and it was hot as all hell to think of a guy that powerful holding her with not intention of hurting her, only of taking care of her in every way. He stroked her wrists and hands with his fingertips, but his eyes were on James between her legs. James held her gaze for a moment, saying, “You watchin’, doll?” She nodded, then he bent down to circle his tongue around her clit. 

She whimpered and he moved lower to kiss along her folds, then draw a slow circle around her center. Her eyes slammed shut and when his tongue made its way back to her clit, she whimpered, “Please. Fuck, James, please.”

His hands tightened on her hips. “Please what, doll?”

He teased his way around her center again and she moaned. “Inside me. I want you inside me.”

“Can’t say no to you.” He bent lower and then his tongue was inside her, exploring slowly, tasting her, drinking her in. She writhed under him and fought Steve to get her hands free, but he didn’t budge. His breathing was getting ragged watching this, his muscles going taut with trying to control his reaction. James pulled free for a moment to groan, “Fuck, you taste good.” Then he was inside her again, lapping her up, drawing a long, desperate moan from her. When he found _that spot_, a spot she hadn’t actually known she had, she actually screamed. He and Steve both tightened their hold on her as she bucked and writhed. James didn’t let up, stroking and teasing that spot over and over as she began to throb and pulse around his tongue, screaming as she climbed higher and higher. She’d never felt this good in her life. He eased her through it, not pulling free until she had come down and was gasping for air, her chest flushed and heaving, her legs having turned to water over his shoulders. He backed off then and met her eyes. “You gonna live, doll?”

“God, I hope so,” she moaned. “I want you to do that to me again.”

James chuckled and kissed her one more time, then gently lowered her legs to the floor and climbed up her to kiss her lips. She tasted herself on him and it was actually insanely hot. “Good,” he said. “’Cause I want to do that to you again.” He looked up then, an eyebrow raised. “What are you thinkin’, Stevie? I can see the wheels turning.”

Steve chuckled. “I’m thinking you’re gonna have to teach me how to do that. That was fuckin’ hot.”

James looked down at her again and brushed his fingertips up and down her ribs. “I don’t know. I kind of like having the monopoly on that.”

Steve released her hands and slowly stroked down to her breasts, drawing teasing circles around her nipples that sent her eyelids shut again and her eyes rolling backwards. “Well, I’ll have to come up with my own monopoly, then.”

“You boys are going to be the death of me.”

“You’re tougher than that, _malen’kiy pauk_,” James murmured, slowly backing off, kissing his way down her abdomen, then further down her thighs and past her knees. “I bet you can go all night.”

“Is that a challenge, _liubymij_?”

Steve leaned low to kiss her, his tongue dipping between her lips. When he came up for air, he said, “Well, you’ve never backed down from a challenge. And fuck, you do taste good.”

“Right?” James said.

\--------------

They stayed on the floor there, kissing, touching, teasing, and drinking, for hours, long enough that he utterly lost track of time. Time meant so little to him after all they’d taken from him. He found he cared only about the present minute, the present second. He knew very well that the alternative was crippling depression and madness.

No point to that. Not when he could enjoy this.

He leaned over and licked Natalia’s nipple into his mouth again, letting her arch her back and press herself deeper into him. The conversation with Steve had done little to convince him that his life was more important than the Soldier’s death, but Natalia had made a pretty serious impression. There were good things to live for and people who wanted him to stay, people he didn’t want to hurt or disappoint.

And he’d forgotten what she tasted like. He found he wasn’t willing to die without experiencing that again.

Natalia shoved him off her then, sending him onto his back. She’d gotten his and Steve’s shirts off a few hours ago and she laid across him, her lovely breasts on his bare skin as she licked and kissed her way across his chest. God, it felt good. Soft, sweet heaven. He watched her, then watched Steve as he too rolled over and began to lick up Natalia’s spine, his hands wandering over her skin, occasionally brushing his where they met. It was hard to tell if that was intentional or not, but he certainly didn’t mind. It seemed to him that he and Steve had always had a more physical friendship than other guys they knew, always hugging or slinging arms over shoulders. He had memories of two separate occasions where Steve had held him at night during the War, cradling him and kissing his hair to soothe him as he suffered through panic attacks and the aftermath of nightmares. This was less platonic, but he didn’t care. In fact, strange as it seemed, he kind of liked it.

For a lifetime, the only touch he’d known had come with pain. Then, there had been Natalia and they had ripped her from him, taking away even the comfort of those memories. Now, he was starved for human contact and loved every second he spent with Natalia’s or Steve’s hands on him.

Natalia gasped and stiffened and he almost smiled. His eyes moved down her powerful body to where Steve was drawing patterns on her lower back with his tongue, his hand buried between her thighs. “You like that, doll?” he murmured to her, running his fingers through her hair.

“God, yes,” she moaned.

“Is he good at that?”

“Fuck, yes.”

Desire coursed through him, making him rock-hard yet again. “Don’t let her come too soon, Stevie,” he said. “I want to hear her beg you for it.”

“God, James,” Natalia groaned. Then, she whimpered and her eyes rolled back. “Oh, fuck.”

He sat up enough to nuzzle her hair and breathe in her scent. God, he loved the way she smelled. “What, doll? You like me talking dirty?”

She shivered. “Yes.”

A surge of pride went through him and he kissed her temple. “Good, ‘cause I can’t damn well help it when you look like that.”

Steve chuckled. “You know you’ve always been a talker? It drove me half mad when we shared that apartment. You’d bring home dames and I’d be laying on the couch and could hear every damn word you said through the bedroom door.”

That made him chuckle. He didn’t remember that but it was a nice story. There were a lot of nice stories about Bucky and he liked hearing them. Maybe he should ask Steve to tell more. But not now. He watched Steve twist his wrist and it was like a bolt of electricity went up Natalia’s spine. Her lips parted and she was gasping for air. He nuzzled her again and said, “You like that, doll? You like him inside you?”

“God…yes.”

He looked to Steve, who was totally wrecked, sweating and breathing unevenly, wanting her. “He likes it too. I bet you’d both like it more if it was his cock buried inside you.”

Natalia’s whole body bucked and Steve groaned, his eyes slamming shut to control his lust. “God, Buck,” he said. “That mouth of yours…”

“A few hours ago, it was buried in her cunt,” he pointed out, his voice still low and teasing. “If you’re going to disparage me for cursing in front of a lady, I’m going to tell you there’s no real point at this stage in the game.”

“Curse all you want, _liubymij_,” Natalia moaned.

Steve sighed at that, but he just chuckled. “As you wish, doll. How many fingers has he got in that gorgeous cunt of yours?”

“Two.”

“Hmm. I bet you can take three. Think she can take three, Steve?” Steve groaned and buried his face at Natalia’s lower back. Natalia gasped, her eyes slamming shut again, and she whimpered. He pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “I knew you’d like that. How’s that feel?”

“Oh god,” Natalia whimpered.

“There’s no god here, doll, just me and Stevie. We promise to take good care of you, though, right Steve?”

“Anything you want, darling, say the word,” Steve said. His voice was an octave lower than he could remember ever hearing it.

“See, doll? Anything you want. We’re taking requests.”

“Steve,” she mumbled. “Your thumb…”

“You want his thumb on your clit, doll?”

“Yes.”

A shudder rippled through her telling him Steve had complied and her fingernails dug into his chest. If she drew blood, he’d have those marks for a few wonderful hours. As it was, the pain made him hiss in pleasure. He was hard enough that his damn jeans were digging into him painfully. He shifted his legs further apart to give himself a bit of room and Natalia grinned at him. “What’s the matter, _liubymij_? Getting jealous?”

“Jealous? Fuck no. It’s hot as all hell watching you get off.” He traced his thumb around her lips. She drew it into her mouth and sucked on it, her tongue teasing at his fingertip. It sent a jolt right to his cock and he groaned. “I do want your gorgeous mouth around my cock, though.”

Steve chuckled. “Christ, Buck.”

“What? You going to lie and tell me you weren’t thinking the same thing?”

“Steve doesn’t like the word ‘cock.’”

Steve sighed. “You know what, Romanoff?”

She raised an eyebrow, a retort at the ready, but suddenly she cried out, her face contorting with pleasure. Christ, it was hot. He found he was actually panting and dry-mouthed with want. “God…tell me what you’re doing, Steve.”

“Nope,” Steve said. Natalia buried her face in his unscarred shoulder and screamed into him. He cradled her with the arm he wasn’t using to prop himself up. “This is my monopoly.”

He kissed her hair as she drew blood with her fingernails. “Come on, doll. Let us hear you. Beg him to make you come.”

“Fuck,” she whimpered, her breath coming hard and fast. Steve was working her faster now and she was rolling her hips, riding his hand, desperate for more. “Please…Steve, please. More.”

“More? You want four fingers, doll? You want him filling you right up?”

She gasped and rocked harder onto Steve’s hand, making him groan. “Yes. Fuck, yes.”

“God damn, Nat,” Steve murmured into her back. “Here I was afraid of breaking you and you want four fingers.”

He chuckled and kissed her hair. “Greedy. Say ‘please.’”

She whimpered as Steve stilled. “You bastards.”

“Indulge us, doll.”

Steve must have done something because she stiffened and whimpered, “Oh fuck. Please. Fuck, please.”

Steve gave her what she wanted and she was writhing and gasping, leaving claw marks up and down his chest. He was going to come in his pants if she kept this up. “Isn’t that worth it, doll?” She bit him hard on the pec and then he was the one digging his fingers into her skin. “Fuck, doll. I don’t think I was supposed to enjoy that but it was hot.”

“Shut up, Buck.”

Not likely. He cradled Natalia’s face with one hand, tipping it upward so she was looking him in the eye, her lips parted and gasping, sweat beading her forehead, her emerald green eyes dark with want. “I want you to look at me when you come, _malen’kiy pauk_. Eyes on me.”

“Please…”

Steve twisted his wrist again, then, and she screamed and writhed, her pupils massive, her fingernails deep in his sides. It was all he could do to keep from coming with her.

When it was over, Natalia sagged onto his chest and he laid back again, holding her close. Her eyes were open and they both watched as Steve, eyes on Natalia’s, licked his fingers clean. A shiver ran through Natalia at the sight. She reached out one lazy arm and laid her hand on Steve’s erection, which was straining as badly against his jeans as his was. She began to stroke him, light and slow, and he immediately groaned. “Damn, Nat. You’ll drive me mad doing that.”

“That’s kind of the idea,” she said with a slow grin. She sat up then and looked slowly between him and Steve, back and forth. “You boys have been so good to me. I wonder if I should return the favor.”

He locked eyes with Steve, who she was still stroking. He wasn’t about to refuse an offer like that and Steve didn’t look physically capable of arguing. “What did you have in mind, doll?”

She raised an eyebrow thoughtfully. “Well, I could use my mouth on one of you while the other watches and uses his hands. That doesn’t seem entirely fair, though. Maybe you could take turns like good boys.”

“I think we’ve established that we’re not good boys,” he said. Steve laughed at that and Natalia smirked.

“I think you’re very good boys, very generous.” She thought for a moment, then smiled like the cat with the canary. “I have an idea. Clothes off, both of you.”

He needed no more incentive that that. He was unbuttoning his jeans and going for his zipper when he met Steve’s eyes. “You heard the lady, Steve. Besides, it’s not like it’s anything either of us haven’t seen before.”

Steve looked thoughtful at that, maybe at the fact that of all the things to remember about Bucky’s life, he’d managed to remember taking turns bathing in ice-cold streams with Steve and the Commandos. On one of those occasions, he’d actually helped Steve because he was nursing a bullet wound in his shoulder. 

In a moment, they were all naked and Natalia was kneeling between them. “Both of you, on your knees,” she ordered.

He liked being ordered around almost as much as he liked hearing her beg. He made his way to his knees and Natalia drew a circle in the air, motioning him to turn. “Face each other.” He did. Then, Natalia settled into Steve’s lap, her legs on either side of his thighs. His face immediately screwed up and he groaned, “Fuck, Nat.” Her thighs tensed and she began to rock, dragging her body over Steve’s cock again and again. His mouth was watering watching it and the want only got more intense when she gave him a crooked smile and braced her hands on his waist. “Fuck,” Steve hissed again, hands white-knuckle-tight on Natalia’s hips. “Nat, this feels fucking amazing, but I’m not making love to you without a little pre-planning.”

Her smile softened and she turned to kiss him over her shoulder. He loved watching them kiss, loved the intimacy and the emotion in it. “Deal. Just enjoy this, then. I am.”

Steve nodded and Natalia faced forward again as she rocked on Steve, her green eyes sparkling. “Now. I believe you requested my mouth on your cock, James.”

_Fucking hell._ He traced his thumb along her bottom lip. Her lips were soft and had a nice pout to them, lips he did want to see wrapped around his cock. “That’s right, doll.”

She leaned in and kissed him long and deep, making him hoarse with want. Then she said against the corner of his mouth, “Are you as much of a chatterbox when you’re being sucked off?”

He met Steve’s eyes and found him smirking. “Yep,” he confirmed. “He barely takes the time to breathe.”

Natalia smiled slowly, looking every inch a predator. “Well, I’ll know that I’m doing a good job, then.” Then, she began kissing her way down his chest as she pulled him up onto his knees. 

He watched her, couldn’t take his eyes off her, and when she took his cock in her hand and kissed the tip, he immediately moaned. “Fuck, doll. Your lips are fucking perfect. And those hands….” Her hands began to slowly stroke him as she rubbed his head over her lips, then licked at him. His hands snapped to her shoulders and gripped, trying not to force her down on him but not letting her back away either. He had remembered enjoying this, but had forgotten what it actually felt like. Now, he was high on it. “God damn, doll.” She massaged his balls in her hand and teased his tip with her lips and tongue. It only made him hungrier. “God damn. Don’t tease, doll. I want you too damn much.”

“Now who’s greedy?” Steve asked with a smirk.

He made eye contact with Steve, who looked slightly less wrecked than he felt. “You’re a punk.”

Natalia rolled her hips slowly and Steve’s eyes rolled back in his head. “Fuck, Nat. You feel so damn good.”

A second later, his face did about the same thing as she sucked the head of his cock into her mouth. She was so hot and wet, all lips and tongue with very deliberate grazes of teeth. “Fuck!” he cried out, rocking his hips forward completely involuntarily. She took him like she was expecting it and he was in to her throat. She didn’t reflex at all, just sucked deep and slow, backing off and sucking every inch of him as she did it. His eyes were rolled back and he was seeing white. A part of him registered that Steve was groaning something, but he failed to spend any brain power on it. He had no real idea where his hands were, just that they were desperately seeking purchase. He was flailing, drowning. When she took him in deep again, letting him hit the back of her throat and hold there for a moment, he cried out and it dialed his senses back up. His mouth was dry and he realized that he had been talking this whole time and couldn’t seem to stop. “Jesus fucking Christ, doll, don’t stop. Fucking hell. You feel so fucking good, Natalia…my Natalia. Fucking god. I love your mouth. I want to bury myself in it and stay there for days. Jesus fucking Christ. Please, doll, don’t stop. Christ.”

She didn’t stop. She kept going, kept driving him wild with new flicks of her tongue, with surprising him with when she would suck him and when she would let him slide away. Her hands were going the whole time, too. One was still playing with his balls, which he wasn’t sure he’d ever had done to him, but it brought everything to another level. The fingers of the other were locked in a tight circle around the base of his cock, attending to what she couldn’t reach with her mouth. She had pulled back so it was just his head in her mouth and then she was sucking on him hard and rocking, taking him in just a tiny bit more, then backing off, all while sucking. He could feel the pleasure rippling all up his spine and it took every ounce of willpower he had not to thrust into her like mad. “Jesus Christ, doll. Fucking god, fucking hell. Natalia, that’s fucking amazing. You’re fucking gorgeous, doll, taking my cock in your mouth like that. Fucking perfect. So fucking good.” She moaned then, and the sound sent vibrations along his cock and rippling through his lower body. It felt so fucking good and she was moaning out of enjoyment of what they were doing. And that was too damn hot to handle. He took his hands abruptly off his shoulders and struggled to stay upright without the support as he fisted both hands. He’d probably already given her bruises and he was utterly losing control of his muscles. She sucked his cock fully into her warm mouth again and with her tongue teased a tiny circle around the bump on the underside of his head.

He saw white.

When he came down, he was gasping for air, his throat was sore from screaming, and his hands were on Steve’s shoulders. Steve had a hand on his human arm, which was quivering, and looked as utterly wrecked as he was. Natalia sat up in Steve’s lap, looking very pleased with herself. Her green eyes were dark and drowsy and she was grinning as she licked her lips. She had swallowed him. As he fought to regain control, his eyes wandered down her beautiful naked body. Her bruises were mere shadows now, thank god. Apparently, Steve had come at more or less the same time he had, because her belly was dripping with the evidence.

“It seems I need a shower,” Natalia said slyly. “Will anyone be joining me?”

They discovered that the shower was, in fact, large enough for all three of them. They took turns with the water and soaps. Natalia griped mildly at the fact that there were only men’s soaps available, so he took the liberty of handing her the shampoo he used after he was done with it, and then the conditioner too. She smiled knowingly at him and held his gaze as she scrubbed the shampoo and conditioner into her hair, making her smell like him, making her his. “Stop making sex eyes at each other,” Steve said, grinning like a fool. “I’m worn out. Let’s finish up and get to bed.”

“You got it, Captain,” Natalia said with a smirk. Knowing how much it had irked Steve when Bucky called him ‘Captain’, he very nearly smiled as he waited for the wrath of Steve. Sure enough, Steve faced the showerhead for a moment and when he turned around, he spit a stream of water right in Natalia’s face. She yelped in surprise and he laughed as she tackled Steve, both of them slipping against the tile wall and nearly sliding to the floor. 

He rolled his eyes and took the opportunity to shut off the water. “Time for bed, children.”

They dried off and went to the bedroom. For the first time, he realized how meticulously neat it was and that he’d been making the bed to army regulation standards. Steve betrayed a sense of comfort at observing this. Natalia leapt onto the center of the bed, immediately messing it up, and sprawled naked across the comforter. “Sorry,” she said, not looking the least bit sorry. “I see something that perfect and I just want to make a mess of it.”

He shook his head and sat on the side of the bed near her. “That about sums up how I feel about you, _malen’kiy pauk_, so I suppose we’re even.”

Steve began pulling back the covers and nudged Natalia, who sat up to pull the covers down under her. They got under the covers together, Steve and him bracketing Natalia. Steve looked across at him and nodded to the lamp. “Want to get that light, Buck?”

Right. Time to sleep.

Sleep meant bad things. So many bad things. Everything blissful about the night evaporated in that moment and his stomach rolled.

“Hey,” Natalia murmured, cradling his face with her hand. “Where did you go?”

He took a deep breath, hating that he was about to wreck everything again, but it couldn’t be helped. “I need one of you to engage the kill switch.”

Natalia looked briefly horrified before her expression smoothed out again. Steve sighed. “I think that’s a bad idea. You’re going to freak out when you wake up and it’s dead weight.”

“Better than _him _waking up with it functional.”

“Buck…”

“James…”

“No,” he said, cutting both of them off. His voice wasn’t at all sharp, just level, stating facts. “I was trained to go three days without sleep. If you don’t want to engage it, that’s fine. You can both stay here and sleep and I’ll stay with you. But I won’t sleep. I am not going to sleep next to you with the arm functional.”

Natalia and Steve exchanged a long, heavy look. Finally, Steve sighed and said, “Being sleep deprived is only going to hurt your mental health. If this is what you need to sleep, fine.” Steve slowly eased himself out of the bed and walked naked to the door and out to the living room where he’d left his clothes. It was strange spending time with Steve naked when they didn’t have to be. Yeah, it was nothing he hadn’t seen before, so it made sense that it wouldn’t particularly bother him. It actually warmed him inside, though, in some place that his damaged mind didn’t have access to right now. When Steve returned, he held up his hand to show the little kill switch.

He breathed a sigh of profound relief and every muscle in his back loosened a bit. “You’ve been carrying it. Thank god. I expected you both to abandon them. You were so opposed to them.”

“I left mine on my floor for now, but I had it with me at dinner,” Natalia said. “I knew Steve had his.”

Steve frowned as he climbed into bed. “How did you know I had mine?”

“I could feel it in your pocket when I was snuggling up against you,” she said as she snuggled up against him once again. Steve gave her a fond kiss, then looked to him. He’d already chosen the side of the bed that put his metal arm on the mattress when he faced them and Steve observed that silently. He held up the kill switch. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

Steve pressed the button, triggering the switch. At first, he thought nothing had happened, but then he tried to move. The arm was locked in the position he’d been in when Steve activated the kill switch, every plate frozen in place. It was dead weight too, and heavy at that. It would prevent him from shifting or rolling around in his sleep, but he really didn’t care much right then. All he felt was relief. He exhaled and said, “Thank you. I can relax now.”

Natalia climbed over him to turn off the light, then they were curling up together, limbs entangled. He and Steve both hissed at Natalia’s cold feet and she laughed as she dragged her toes up their legs while they squirmed. Eventually, they all quieted and settled in, Natalia kissing each of them once on the lips, then murmuring sleepily as she burrowed into the bed. Without really thinking about it other than knowing he wanted to do it, he reached out and laid a hand on Steve’s bicep, resting his arm like that. Steve met his eyes in the dark and reached out to mirror the position.

Minutes later, he fell asleep just like that. 


	15. The Soldier Returns

Steve hardly slept and when he did, it was fitfully, waking up every time he moved and every time either Natasha or Bucky moved. Both Nat and Bucky seemed to have fallen asleep easily and so far stayed that way and he didn’t know how that was possible. Natasha seemed to be able to sleep at the drop of a hat. Maybe it was something she had been trained to do, to sleep when sleep was available and to go without when it wasn’t. Maybe Bucky had been trained that way too.

Steve had not and he certainly did not feel that sleep was available in this situation.

He _knew_ that Bucky was going to panic when he woke up with the arm disengaged. He _knew _that if Bucky wasn’t already the Soldier, having the arm disengaged would wake him, _it_, back up. He knew he was going to be terrified and paranoid and that he would lash out. The morning before, that had been exactly the case and he hadn’t been naked with his arm disengaged. Steve had seen the absolute terror in his eyes as he stood there holding the gun, his metal hand clenching and unclenching. What had he been thinking in that moment? Was he afraid of him and Nat? Or was it something else? There had been an awful lot going on behind his eyes, Steve could see that clear as day.

Well, when Bucky did inevitably become the Soldier again, Steve could ask him.

They were on Bucky’s floor, which meant no guns. There wasn’t a knife block. There might be knives in a drawer, Steve didn’t know, but if there were, the Soldier would probably have as hard a time finding them as Steve. Natasha was still injured, but not in a way that would prevent her from defending herself against the Soldier. And the arm was already disengaged, Bucky had seen to that. Steve trusted the kill switch more than he trusted most technology. Tony was good at what he did and he had clearly understood how important this particular piece of tech was. They couldn’t wish for better odds of being able to detain the Soldier.

Neither Bucky nor Natasha woke at any point during the night and neither cried out, but he could see their faces in the dark and every now and then one of them would shift into expressions of distress, telling him they were both having nightmares on and off. Sometimes, one of them would tighten an arm or shift a leg to more firmly intertwine them. Through it all, Steve whispered soothing words as quietly as he could and kept his own arms tight around them. He wanted to wake them to get them out of whatever hell they were witnessing, but he knew that would only make things worse. Both of them had instincts to react defensively and violently to being woken and he couldn’t risk that for any of them.

When the first rays of dawn light began to creep through the unshaded windows, Natasha groaned and buried her face in the pillow, which was enough to make him smile despite everything.

When Bucky began to wake, he knew immediately by the frown on his face and the way his brow furrowed. Confusion. Steve watched as his muscles twitched, just enough for him to know that the Soldier was testing them out. A moment later, his eyes snapped wide open, blazing blue, staring right at Steve.

“Your arm is disengaged,” Steve said gently, like he would to a frightened deer. “And there are no weapons nearby. Neither of us want a repeat of yesterday. Try to remain calm and we can sort this out.”

The Soldier frowned deeply, his eyes flashing with distrust. “What did you do to my arm?”

“You did that,” Steve said. “Last night, you did that to keep Natasha and me safe from you.”

That only worsened the Soldier’s confusion. “Why would I do that? You are marks. I have orders.”

“You’re not obeying many orders anymore, though, are you?” Steve asked, not missing that the Soldier really had no memory of being Bucky, of even guessing Bucky’s thought processes. He needed to proceed recognizing that the Soldier only knew what he’d experienced as the Soldier. “You pulled me out of the river. You burned those Hydra bases, killed the people inside. That’s not the fist of Hydra, is it?”

The Soldier’s jaw locked. “How do you know about that?”

“I was looking for you. I knew you a long time ago, before you were the Soldier.”

That leant fear to the confusion, fear Steve never wanted to inspire in Bucky. “There is no before. There is only the Soldier.”

“That’s not true and you know it. You remembered me, that’s why you pulled me out of the river. To the end of the line, right?”

The Soldier’s eyes flashed in recognition, but he still did not relax at all. His eyes flicked over Steve and Natasha lying between them, surely wide awake but showing no signs of it, perfectly imitating sleep. “You’ve compromised me. What did you do to me?”

Here goes nothing. “I helped you remember who you were.”

And there it was. Curiosity. Longing. It was exactly what Steve had been hoping to see. But then, a wall came down behind his eyes and fear took over again. “I’m not supposed to remember. They’ll wipe it away.”

A chill ran down his spine. “They’re not going to. I know you’re scared, but you’re safe here. Natasha and I are keeping you safe from them.”

He shook his head. “They’re looking for me. They’ll find me and there will be punishment and they will wipe me_._” The last words were uttered in something resembling a whimper and Steve wanted to pull him closer and soothe him, but he knew that physical affection would only make this worse. The Soldier had no knowledge of physical affection, only pain. He wanted to ask him what he meant by those words,_ wipe me_, but he knew that now was not the time. The Soldier would only panic, thinking he was being interrogated.

“That’s not going to happen. They can’t get to you here.”

The Soldier’s jaw hardened again. “There is no escape. They are everywhere. I have to destroy them.”

“We’re going to destroy them. Together.” The Soldier looked doubtful, but he didn’t question Steve’s commitment, at least not out loud. He needed reassurance. “Whatever you believe about me, I know you know this: I hate Hydra. It is my mission to destroy Hydra. If that’s your mission too, then we can work together as allies. Right?”

The Soldier considered that for a long moment. Steve thought for sure he would reject the proposal, but, finally, he said, “Allies.”

Steve all but sagged in relief, well aware that he was giving away his feelings, but unable to help it. He’d always been an open book anyway. “Allies.”

They were quiet for a moment, then the Soldier growled, “I know you’re awake, Widow. How did Captain America buy the Red Room’s prized pupil?”

Natasha turned her head to look at the Soldier. “He didn’t buy me. He earned my loyalty. My skills come free of charge.”

“Loyalty,” the Soldier said derisively. “What is loyalty for a traitor and a spy?”

“It is everything,” Natasha said. “As a traitor and a spy, my loyalty comes at a very high price. For a long time, my loyalty was to myself alone and no one could buy me. And then, Steve Rogers won me over. Not Captain America. Steve Rogers.”

The Soldier looked deeply confused again. “Steve Rogers is a skinny kid from Brooklyn.”

Steve felt hot tears spring to his eyes and he couldn’t stop his grin. “That’s right. I was a skinny little kid, always sick, always getting into fights. Sometimes you finished them for me or patched me up afterward.”

The Soldier’s eyes went foggy. “I did?”

“Yeah.”

The Soldier blinked several times as if trying to clear away the confusion. “I had…a name. I’m not supposed to remember. They’ll wipe me.”

“That’s not going to happen. You’re safe with us. We’re going to destroy Hydra and they’ll never touch you again.”

“Safe,” the Soldier said slowly, as if trying the word on for size. He closed his eyes tight, then opened them, blinking as if trying to chase off sleep. “What was my name?”

“James Buchanan Barnes. To me, you were Bucky.”

The Soldier blinked several more times, then murmured, “32557038.” As Steve was processing the fact that the Soldier knew Bucky’s serial number, something in those eyes shifted. “What the…? Steve? Why am I awake? What the fuck is going on?”

This time, Steve did sag in relief, then he was tightening his grip on Bucky’s shoulder and pulling him in, squishing Natasha between them, not that she seemed to mind at all. She was burying her face in Bucky’s neck. “Christ, Buck. Thank god.”

Bucky blinked several more times, not unlike the way the Soldier had. “What’s going on? Did I wake up as him? Did the kill switch work?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it did.” Unable to help himself, Steve leaned over Natasha and pressed a kiss to Bucky’s forehead, then fell back into his spot on the bed. “I talked to him.”

Bucky’s eyes popped. “You _talked_ to him?”

Steve nodded. “Yeah. He’s not such a bad guy, actually. Just very distrusting.”

“I don’t blame him,” Natasha said softly. Then she was pressing kisses to Bucky’s neck. 

He bent to kiss her forehead, then looked back to Steve. “Okay. So, fill me in. What did you say, what did he say? What did you do to get me back?”

“All I had to do to get you back was to make you remember. He wanted his name, so I told him. James Buchanan Barnes, Bucky to me. And then you woke up.”

There were tears in Bucky’s eyes then and he buried his face in Natasha’s hair. “Jesus. He just wanted his name. He just wanted his own name. Fuck.” Then, his shoulders began to shake and he was sobbing. “That’s all I wanted, all I needed to wake up. I just needed someone to call me by my own name.”

Natasha peered over her shoulder at Steve, then deftly rolled over Bucky, putting him in the middle and burying his face in her chest. Steve took the opportunity to wrap his arms tight around Bucky’s shoulders and chest, the way he used to when he’d wake up from nightmares. There had been a period when they were first with the Howling Commandos and traveling just as their small band when they’d done this all the time. It had not been long since Azzano and Bucky was barely sleeping. All the guys knew it and they all knew when he did manage to sleep because he spent most of his unconscious time repeating his serial number and pleading with monsters who weren’t there. When he’d wake, he’d be drenched in sweat, white as a ghost, and hyperventilating. After some prodding from Steve, Bucky had eventually agreed to share a tent with him so that when he did wake up from the nightmares, Steve could roll over and hold him like this until he calmed down. Bucky had worried that the other men would judge, but they hadn’t said a word and, eventually, Bucky began to sleep better. Of course, on those nights they had been fully clothed, but aside from the extra heat of Bucky’s skin, Steve found he couldn’t care less about being pressed up against him naked. In fact, after everything that happened last night, it seemed rather natural. “Shh,” he whispered to Bucky. “Shh. It’s okay. We’re going to get your memories back and we’re going to destroy Hydra. Everything will be alright soon.”

Bucky had his metal arm propped on Natasha’s shoulder and his right hand around Steve’s wrist. He said nothing, but tightened Steve’s arm around him and buried his face deeper in Natasha’s chest.

\---------------

When James had calmed down enough to settle himself in the kitchen with Steve and the makings of a big breakfast, Natasha escaped his floor. Everything was so raw, so charged with emotions and pain and lust and the very air was difficult to breathe despite her rapidly healing throat. To be fair, she had exasperated the injury a bit by taking James in her mouth last night, but she’d been too pleased with herself that she’d gotten both guys to forget about her injury to back out. So, as soon as she could, she retreated to her floor to enjoy a hot cup of tea and some silence.

She loved silence. Silence was where she could find her center without interruptions, where she could think clearly and work efficiently, where she could find her spirit and heal it once she’d danced away the sharp edges. And, most of the time, silence simply wasn’t possible when there were other people present.

She savored her tea, a matcha blend with healing herbs for her raw throat. Then, she dressed in her yoga gear and retreated to her studio with a large bottle of water, warm to ease the tension in her neck.

When she needed to spar more than she needed to dance, but she also needed quiet, she practiced her tai chi as she did now. The martial art lay somewhere on the continuum between yoga and sparring and, depending on the speed and the intent of the user, could be an expression of peace or war. Her goal in her practice was always absolute silence and to never find stillness, to always be transitioning to the next sequence, the next strike. She varied her speed between a contemplative dance and an aggressive onslaught and each time she practiced, she created new routines, repeated them until they were muscle memory, then let them fall away in favor of new ones, always learning, always creating. She did her tai chi without music so she could listen for the tiniest whisper of her bare feet on the hardwood, any labored breaths, any sign of weakness that would mean her death were she using these skills in a darkened room amongst enemies.

She finished her practice and her water a few hours later and emerged from the studio for a warm shower to keep her muscles from locking up and to wash away the sweat. Then, it was the preparation of a beef broth with noodles and herbs in it to eat while she worked. She would have limited time to devote to her projects with so many worried eyes cast her way. As she perched at the counter with her soup and laptop, she said to Jarvis, “Jarvis? Lock my floor against _everyone_, but don’t tell them it’s locked unless they are in the elevator and headed this way. I don’t want to worry anyone.”

“Understood, Ms. Romanoff.”

Then, she delved into her web.

As often happened, she lost hours of time as she dropped into the rabbit hole that was her work. The situation became more pronounced when she reached a breakthrough and began creating viruses and injecting them into the database of her target trafficking cell. A snakelike program she’d written and rewritten around an enemy hacker’s attempts to lock her out returned laden with useful information that it had managed to steal, leaving corrupted folders behind that would wipe and rewipe the system each time they were opened. It would cripple the cell, leaving it unable to maintain connections with buyers. If the means of selling was gone, fewer victims would be needed by the cell. It took a few more hours to fight the hacker and keep her tracks covered, sweeping away her digital footprints until the hacker became lost in a program she’d placed in Mogadishu, ten servers away from her laptop. Then, she was home free with her data.

She breathed a sigh of triumph and leaned back in her barstool, savoring the moment. She’d defeated a trafficking cell, at least for now, and she hadn’t had to get on a plane to do it. She did have a duty yet to turn over the incriminating information to someone who would do something about it, in this case the US government, and she would need to keep the cell on her radar to make sure the girls were recovered swiftly and the traffickers punished appropriately. But, the first step, which in many ways was the largest, was done.

Another sigh of relief. Then, her eyes cleared and she realized that the kitchen was shrouded in darkness.

“Shit,” she hissed to herself. “Jarvis? Has anyone been looking for me?”

“Yes, Ms. Romanoff. Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes, Mr. Barton, and Sir have each inquired after you.”

“Where are they now?”

“Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes, and Mr. Barton are in the gym. Sir is in his lab.”

She locked down her laptop, then unfolded herself from the barstool and made for the elevator. “Thank you. Please tell Tony that I’ll be in the gym with the boys if he wants to talk to me.”

“As you wish.”

When the elevator doors opened on the gym, she was greeted by the sound of striking, grunting, and shouting that told her Steve and Clint were sparring. She didn’t get very far before a set of steely eyes snapped to her and James turned her way from where he’d been leaning against the weight system watching the sparring. “Doll,” he greeted her quietly. “What’ve you been up to?”

She folded down onto the mat near him and began stretching. “If you’re concerned about me getting into trouble, James, rest assured that that’s exactly what I was doing.”

He tilted his head and the shifting light on his neck showed her that his bruises were almost entirely faded. Good. “Were you hacking your trafficker friends?”

“Yep.” She rolled her hips to stretch into pigeon pose, then folded her leg up behind her. James’s eyes were glued to her and the yoga pants she was wearing. She wondered what he made of the Hammer Tech t-shirt she had chosen to wear to annoy Tony. “I dealt them a pretty solid hit too, and sent them on a wild goose chase on my way out.”

“Congrats. I assume you got information too?”

“Naturally.” She unfolded, then rolled and stretched into pigeon on the other leg. “I have a contact in mind to send the incriminating bits to. This cell is responsible for several missing American girls, so I know from experience that they should face justice swiftly.”

“Good.” James stayed standing near her, but turned to watch the sparring match once more. She joined him in observing the match, unable to help smirking. Clint and Steve fought very differently, especially when they used the shield and staff, as they were doing now. Warmth seeped into her bones watching Steve move, watching his muscles flex and stretch with each strike. His grey sweatpants and white t-shirt left very little to the imagination, especially when he was working this hard and drenched in sweat. She wanted to climb his body and lick the beads of sweat from his throat.

“You getting hot and bothered, doll?” James asked teasingly.

She gave him a sly grin. “A little. Enough that I’m going to need to spar soon to work it out. You game?”

His face went blank except for the wide eyes he trained on her. “Natalia, no. Not a good idea.”

“Maybe, maybe not. I think that’s part of why I like it. Besides, Steve and Clint are here to spot us.”

He turned to fully face her then, the light catching the chrome edging on the plates of his arm, left exposed by his grey t-shirt. “The answer is ‘no.’ I’m not going to put you at risk.”

_You’ve never backed down from a challenge._ “I wouldn’t stress about it.”

James glared at her. “We’re not sparring.”

That wiped the grin right off her face. Nobody told her what to do. Not anymore. “That’s not entirely up to you, James.”

He raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth to say something condescending, but she was already grabbing his metal wrist and vaulting up over him, bringing him down flat on his back with a _smack_, then kicking him over and locking the metal arm behind his back in a pin. The silence told her that Clint and Steve had frozen to watch the proceedings. Good.

James exhaled once and growled, “Damn it, Natalia.”

Then they were rolling and thrashing on the floor, fighting for a pin. She had to move almost twice as fast as him at this range to avoid the extra strength behind the arm, but she liked the challenge and quickly came used to compensating for that inequality. She could tell that James was noting her tactics for avoiding the arm, particularly after she managed to vault backwards over it when he swung at her. Soon, he was allowing it a little more power and speed, not holding himself back so strictly.

She rolled backwards and up to her feet and James took the breathing space to jump to his. Then, they were at each other again, throwing punches, slaps, kicks, and jabs that never seemed to land. She launched herself at him, locking her legs around his body and twisting as she bent his human arm backwards. To her surprise, he borrowed some of her momentum and launched into an aerial, throwing her right off him. She rolled through the landing and bounced right back up. They circled each other slowly, enjoying a second of breathing space, observing weak points. He moved slowly and silently with his hands at his sides, fingers opening and closing as if preparing to grab and fire a weapon. Steve moved like a boxer for the most part and she knew he’d learned it from Bucky. But James wasn’t Bucky, not entirely anyway. He’d learned things since then, things he was using now, that overrode his original boxing training.

She feinted towards his right arm, then went for the left side, but he anticipated it and blocked the attack, sending off a flurry of strikes of his own that she found herself working to dodge and parry. When she found the space, she jumped, used both hands on his left shoulder to give herself a boost, and locked her thighs around his head. Before she could demand he yield to the neck-breaking final move, though, he had dropped his right hip and rolled to the mat. She managed to keep her legs around him through force of will, but then her back was down on the mat and his eyes were inches above hers, her hands pinned beneath his. Her knees were still at his ears, but she didn’t have the leverage to do any damage now, so it only served to remind her of him eating her out the night before. His eyes went dark and his lips parted as if he’d gotten the same image at the same time. “Still there, James?” she asked breathlessly.

“Yeah, doll,” he said, bending to brush his lips over hers, just the ghost of a kiss. It made her nerve endings tingle.

“Then, I think you can stand to worry a little less.”

“Worry ‘bout what?” he murmured in that Brooklyn drawl she was falling for. Then, his mouth was on hers, hot and wet, and she was tightening her grip on him, encouraging him.

“Gross! Cooties!”

They froze and she groaned aloud. James pulled away far enough to growl, “Shut up, Stark.”

Clint was laughing his ass off, though, and when James helped her up, she caught Steve and Bruce smirking at them too. Sam was doing nothing to hide a shit-eating grin. Apparently, they’d attracted quite the audience and put on quite the show.

There was a metallic whirring and clicking from the arm as James paced, glaring at the lot of them. “Alright, alright, you jokers,” he growled. “I’d love an excuse to hit one of you if anyone’s game to put their money where their mouth is.”

Sam stepped forward. “Just so long as my mouth doesn’t end up inside of yours, I’m good.” 

More laughter from the peanut gallery and a glower from James. Natasha rolled her eyes and grabbed James’s wrist to halt his pacing. He stilled and looked down to her hand as she leaned in to murmur in his ear, just barely loud enough that the others could hear, “_Mir, liubymij_. Let them laugh. When I’m done here, I have plans to take a nice, hot bath with a glass of wine and out of all the fellas here, you’re the only one who’s invited to join me.” She gently bit his neck and he rasped a low growl that was completely different from the one he’d been dealing everyone else.

“Fuck, Red…” Tony groaned. He and the rest of the guys were dark-eyed and unsteady on their feet. 

She reigned in her smirk as she sauntered over to Steve, watching James watch her the whole way. When she found a good vantage point to watch the spar, and step in if need be, she turned her back on Steve and felt his large hands come to rest on her hips. His breath was hot on her ear when he whispered, “What do I have to do to also get an invite, darling?”

James’s eyebrow quirked upward watching them as he began to circle Sam and she did smirk then. Knowing James could read her lips, she whispered to Steve, “Well, I happen to know you give excellent massages, handsome, so you have my invite, but you’ll need James’s to get past the bathroom door.”

Steve chuckled and James snorted, then focused his attention on Sam just as Sam took the first swing. She had still been feeling eyes on her, but they all turned to watch the spar as it unfolded. Sam fought like a brawler with a bit of martial arts thrown in, not hugely different from James’s preferred style. They fought well together and quickly began to learn from each other, mimicking moves and anticipating strikes. Each landed a few core strikes before Sam finally landed a right hook that sent James’s head reeling. A hush fell in the gym as he caught his balance, then slowly, stiffly, turned to face Sam. She knew that in that moment everyone, like her, was waiting to see if the Soldier had emerged yet. Now, James initiated the sequence and was quickly backing Sam up, then sweeping his legs out from under him. As Sam was bouncing towards his feet, James locked on to his shoulder and flipped him, easily pinning him with his arm behind his back at an absurd angle. “Ow, ow, ow! Yield!” Sam yelped.

James yielded, releasing him and taking a step back, only then beginning to gasp for air. Clint stepped forward to help Sam up while James paced and Bruce tossed a water bottle that he somehow caught with his metal hand. As he drained it, Steve stepped into the sparring space and patted him on the shoulder. “Nice fight, Buck.”

“Thanks, I think,” James returned after a moment, frowning and blinking in confusion. At first, she was worried that he was dazed from the hit he’d taken, but he immediately locked eyes with her and she saw the darkness there as it shifted and changed.

The Soldier _had _taken over. James had _just _broken out as Steve touched him and said his name.

She let him see the understanding in her eyes, _message received_, then laid on a smirk and turned to Tony, who was watching the procedures with his manic look. “Hey, Shellhead. Want to box?”

The attention shifted immediately and she did get Tony to box her, even as she kept James in her periphery, watching him watch her with anxiety and concentration boiling under his skin, just barely beyond what the rest of them could see. He was trying to keep the Soldier under control, that was for certain.

How long would he hold out? And what would the Soldier do if he did break out?

\----------------

As he sparred with Natalia and then with Sam, his brain flickered in and out while his body kept moving, the Soldier and Bucky fighting for control of the situation. It was horribly disorienting, but apparently didn’t affect his performance, at least not negatively. The man he was these days kept the floor for the majority of the fights, but the Soldier kept barging in and took full control both when Natalia started pulling moves he remembered from the Red Room and when Sam got that hit to his jaw. Then, the Soldier’s memories and training pushed themselves forward and moves he hadn’t consciously chosen were executed by his muscles. Failure was not an option, that was the predominant thought.

Now, after the fact, he could remember shards of what the Soldier had been thinking in those fractured moments and those thoughts chilled him. The Soldier had known he was sparring, thank god, not fighting for real. That was why he’d let Sam yield, because he’d been trained to follow orders from handlers and Hydra operatives. He’d known Natalia’s fight pattern because he’d spent so much time sparring with her and the sequences he’d used with her came right back without even trying, nothing more than muscle memory.

Natalia and only Natalia knew that the Soldier had broken out, thank god, and she was keeping an eye on him now so he could stay in the gym and pretend that things were normal for everyone else’s sake and for his. He didn’t want their worry or their pity, especially not Steve’s. Steve had enough on his plate. But he wanted someone to supervise him and Natalia was doing that, even as she gently handed Tony his ass in the boxing ring.

It was hell watching her spar someone else.

He kept recalling cussing himself out in front of the mirror, telling the Soldier over and over that protecting Natalia and Steve was the new mission. He had assumed the Soldier couldn’t hear or refused to take orders from him, but after Steve’s conversation with the Soldier that morning, things inside his head seemed to have shifted. He could feel his flesh rippling with unease as he watched Tony’s strikes come close to their mark, just barely missing or being blocked. The man he was now was mildly nervous, but confident in her abilities.

The _Soldier_ was clawing at the front of his skull and at the inside of his nerves, trying to take over and launch forward to protect her. The Soldier _hated _watching her spar, _hated _seeing her in danger, seeing her trusting someone else the way she trusted him, someone who hadn’t done enough to earn her trust. There were a few moments when he lost control enough that the gears in his arm whirred and his metal fingers began tapping out the comforting number in morse code. 32557038. Steve and Bruce both noticed on separate occasions, but he just flicked his eyes to theirs nonchalantly, then returned to watching the spar. They instantly dismissed the observation, probably chalking it up to the arm needing recalibration after the spars. They were right that it needed recalibration, but that was an entirely secondary issue.

Maybe it had only happened because of the fighting. He’d fully expected it to happen, after all, and the result was far less serious than he’d anticipated. He had thought that if the Soldier sparred with someone it would involve an ambulance or a hearse, one of the two. That wasn’t at all the case, though, and this had likely been the worst way to test out the Soldier’s ability to break out. So yes, maybe it would only happen with nightmares and fighting. Not ideal, but not horrible.

Maybe that wasn’t true, though. And did he really want to find that out the hard way?

No. He didn’t.

The Soldier was still screaming under his skin when he clapped Steve on the shoulder and left the gym twenty minutes later. He continued to scream as he rode the elevator to his floor, as he walked through the living area where he and Steve and Natalia had played last night, as he passed through the bedroom where he’d fallen asleep as himself and woken as the Soldier.

Perhaps he’d always be the Soldier.

He showered without really processing what he was doing, then dressed in jeans, his combat boots, and a t-shirt. Then, he stood in front of the mirror again, this time leaning on the edge of the sink.

“I don’t trust you,” he said brokenly. “How can I trust you after all you’ve done? Everything you’ve done to all those people, to Steve, to Natalia, to _me_? You locked me up rather then let me stop you. You made me comply. You made me do the things they asked. You stole my mind from me, my mind, my body, my fucking soul. I am damned for the things you did. Fuck, I still don’t know how much choice you gave me. Maybe it really is my fault and I just don’t remember yet. Fuck, this is messed up. I don’t know what you’re thinking right now or what you’ll do next time you get out. I think you _want _me to think it’s safe. But you and I don’t always see eye to eye, do we? Nope. That’s why I didn’t want to come in the first place, ‘cause eventually, you’re going to make me hurt Steve. That’s how this ends, isn’t it?”

In his nerves, the Soldier shuddered.

He wanted out.

And he couldn’t let that happen.

Tears burned his eyes and he glared through them at his reflection. “Fuck you!” he screamed, lashing out with his left fist and shattering the mirror. Glass rained down into the sink and onto the bathroom floor. A part of him took notice of how dangerously sharp the shards looked.

Through the windows, he could see snow falling, tiny white flurries dancing in the darkness. He grabbed a jacket without looking at it, retrieved his smokes from the living room, and went to the elevator.

Minutes later, he stood on the roof of the Tower, leaning against the railing with a cigarette hanging from his lips. He looked out over the city below, at the contrast of wild lights and pitch darkness, listened to the hum of noise beneath the cold breeze lifting his hair. He took another drag of the cigarette, then held it between his fingers out over the edge. There were ninety-three stories between him and the sidewalk below. The paparazzi and tourists that hovered around the main doors were like ants.

He could jump.

It would kill him.

And it would kill the Soldier.

He’d fallen off that damn train and survived, but that hadn’t been this high and there had been plenty of trees and shit he’d hit on the way down that slowed him. His skull hadn’t been crushed. Everything else that had been broken was repaired by Department X and healed by the damn serum. This? This would mean his body being flattened on the pavement. It might even mean he’d be nothing but blood spatter, bone dust, and metal chips. No healing that.

He took another drag of the cigarette, a lingering farewell drag, then dropped it and watched it fall. It disappeared from view quickly.

He’d hardly have time to think about it as he fell. He wouldn’t scream like when he’d fallen from the train. No one needed to hear that and he wouldn’t be afraid this time. It would be under his terms.

It was more than Hydra had ever given him. Finally, he had the power to make his own choices. It would be fitting if he could choose when to die.

It would mean silencing the Soldier permanently. It would mean no more waking up as him and trying to kill Steve and Natalia. It would mean no more fear of being captured by Hydra and made into a weapon again. He was a danger to everyone around him. If he could destroy the risk he posed, that would be a good thing. Brave, even selfless to the point of noble. All he had to do was give up the things he’d gained since he remembered Steve on that helicarrier. His best friend, his lover, his memories.

He should do it. Better to do it now than to be taken by Hydra or to risk Natalia and Steve again. He should get it out of the way before he became more compromised.

He inhaled the crisp night air, tasting it on his lungs, and looked over the skyline at the Brooklyn Bridge. It was just as beautiful as he remembered it.

He took a step up onto the first rung of the railing.

This was the right thing to do. It would be better this way.

He took another step up.

The door opened. “Bucky?! What the hell are you doing?”

His eyes fell shut. _Fuck._

Steve was at his elbow then, one hand firmly clasped around his human arm. “Bucky. Get the fuck off that railing.”

“Steve…”

“No! Look at me!”

He did. There were tears in Steve’s eyes and his face was stricken by panic and pain. It was the exact same face he’d worn when he’d fallen from the train. “Please,” Steve croaked through his tears. “Get off the railing.”

His eyes fell shut and he sighed in defeat, climbing down to set his feet firmly on the floor. His whole body sagged as the misery, the failure, the weakness coursed through him and Steve ended up catching him in his arms, clutching him to his chest. “Jesus fucking Christ, Buck,” Steve said, still frantic and now sobbing into his neck. “You scared the hell outta me. God…I can’t believe…fuck. What was going through your damn head?”

“You don’t wanna know,” he mumbled, burying his face in Steve’s neck. Steve wasn’t wearing a coat, but he was blazing hot anyway and smelled of cool leather, soap, and Steve. He hugged him back selfishly, still reeling from failing to do what he should have done but also foolishly glad to be in Steve’s arms right now.

“Yeah, I do. I want to talk you out of it so this doesn’t happen again. Christ, Bucky…I just got you back. I’d die if I lost you again, I swear to God.”

Those words wrenched at his heart, painful in his chest. “You have Natalia. And Steve…I’m as much the Soldier as I am Bucky. The Soldier needs to die before he hurts anyone else.”

Steve shuddered, actually shuddered, and shook his head fiercely. “No. Don’t you dare think like that. Nat and I need you. We _need _you, Buck. It wouldn’t be the same without you, we’d be so lost. And the Soldier…we can deal with the Soldier. Nat and I can take him down between the two of us no problem and you have that kill switch now. I promise I will use it before I let him hurt Natasha like that again and you know she’d use it to protect me.”

He was shaking his head, though, thinking of exactly what Hydra would do if they found that kill switch. Steve didn’t get it. He could be painfully idealistic, so much so that it made him cringe. “No. Hydra is coming for me. They’re not going to stop and when they get me, they’re going to…” he choked on the words.

“What?” Steve asked. “What will they do?”

Now he was the one shuddering, shutting his eyes and grimacing as the images rushed through his mind like a dam bursting. “They’ll unmake me again. They’ll torture me until I regret every second away from them. They’ll find that kill switch and take it out or replace the whole damn arm. They’ll put me in that fucking_ chair_ and they’ll wipe me again.”

“What chair?” Steve asked, his voice hushed.

He clenched his left hand into a fist and listened to the gears whir. That always comforting number began to play across his mind, the only thing he always remembered. _32557038…32557038…32557038_.He’d asked a doctor about it once and they’d immediately wiped him, hoping to drive it out. He never asked again. “They call it a mental recalibration chair,” he gasped out, barely breathing. His chest was caving in. He could see the chair again, could feel the braces dropping across his body, could see the lights of the halo flashing. _32557038…32557038…32557038_. His ribs were collapsing. “They strap me into it and…there’s all this noise and light…and electricity, burning through my fucking head, shredding me on the inside…and when it’s done, I’m…I’m no one, Steve. No one. No name, no emotions, no memories except what they want me to remember. It’s just the Soldier, nothing else.” He wasn’t breathing. His lungs didn’t have the space. _32557038…32557038…32557038. _“I can’t let them do that to me again, Steve. I can’t…I can’t…”

“Shh, easy,” Steve murmured. “That’s not going to happen. I won’t let it happen. You gotta breathe, Buck. Come on, take a breath.”

_Can’t…32557038…breathe…32557038…._

“Hey, come on,” Steve said, more urgently this time. “Bucky, listen to me. I’m not going to let them take you. I swear. You’re safe here with Nat and I and the Avengers. They can’t get to you here.”

He was lightheaded now and his vision was blurring. He wanted to argue with Steve, but couldn’t make his tongue work much less find the air.

_32557038…32557038…32557038._

“Hey!” Steve snapped. “Bucky, come on! Breathe!” He couldn’t. He fucking couldn’t and his muscles were starting to fail, putting more of his weight on Steve. “Damn it, Bucky, come on!” Pain seared his left cheek and his head rolled to the side, but it didn’t really affect him. He was used to pain, used to not crying out, not showing emotion, not reacting at all. He could feel hot tears on the side of his cold face but he was reasonably sure they weren’t his. “Jesus, Bucky, please! Come on!”

_32557038…32557038…32557038._

Warmth. Softness. Safety. Someone’s lips on his, desperate and pleading. Heat rippled along his skin across his face, down his neck, further down his chest and along his arms. The parts of him that had started to go numb, his face, his hands, his feet, went warm again and he found his fingers clutching at whatever or whoever he was holding onto. The kiss broke and oxygen rushed into his lungs and he was gasping and shaking, struggling to hold the air in one place long enough to absorb it, then let it out and start over. In, out. In, out.

“Jesus Christ, you scared me, Buck,” Steve whimpered, burying his face in his neck again. “Christ.”

He was still gasping for air, but his senses and his brain function were starting to slowly catch up. “I…had a…panic attack.”

“Yeah, you did. You got them all the time after Azzano too. I used to keep a flask of hooch with me to knock you out of ‘em, but I sure don’t have that with me now.”

He frowned. Everything felt slow and sluggish. The word ‘Azzano’ brought up all kinds of horrible images he was trying to suppress, but something that seemed far more important was that warmth, that softness. The…kiss? Yes, it was a kiss. Had he imagined that? “Did you kiss me?”

Steve snorted. “Yeah, I kissed you, dummy. Who’d you think it was?”

His stomach was rolling over and over. Steve had kissed him. What the hell did that mean? He loved being held by Steve, just like this. Steve gave great hugs and always knew when he needed them and when not to let go. He wasn’t letting go now and he was so damn grateful for that. He needed the touch and the warmth and the security. This had been the first time Steve had kissed him on the mouth, at least that he remembered, but Steve had kissed him on the head before to calm him down. He didn’t want to question a good thing, but he didn’t want to misunderstand either. “I don’t know. I thought I imagined it. Oxygen deprivation and all that.” Steve had gone very still. He was questioning a good thing. “Did we…before? I don’t remember.”

He could hear Steve’s swallow and could feel his Adam’s apple bounce. “Well…no. No, we didn’t.”

Steve was obviously backpedaling. Fast. And that was not okay. His brain was not at full strength yet, if it ever really was, but he had one clear solution in mind. “Well, that’s a damn shame.”

Steve jerked his head back to look him in the eye. His face was lined with tear tracks and his eyes were red and puffy from crying, but he was all Steve, so sincere and loyal and fierce. “What…?”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re such a punk.” Then he kissed him.

That soft warmth was back, trickling right into his veins. He felt weightless and yet perfectly safe and secure. Anchored. It was tentative and nerve-wracking, but so damn right. Steve was stock-still until he pulled away, but he didn’t get far. Steve grabbed his face in both hands, fingers carding through his hair, thumbs stroking the line of his jaw, and kissed him back, not at all tentatively this time. He was kissing him hard and fast, eager, hungry after waiting so long for something they hadn’t known they were missing. He slipped his tongue out without a second thought and ran it along Steve’s lower lip. Steve gasped and then his lips were parted too and they were tasting each other, teasing and exploring. He dug his fingers into Steve’s powerful shoulders and kissed him with a little more purpose. Steve had so many memories of Bucky the ladies’ man and, to his surprise, he remembered those skills and wanted to put them to use. He swirled his tongue around Steve’s, then licked slowly back to his lip so he shuddered. Then, he trapped Steve’s lower lip between his and sucked. “Christ, Buck…” Steve gasped when he released him, then he was kissing him again, deeper and faster. They got lost in each other, lips and tongues dancing, trading warmth and sharing each breath. He teased Steve’s tongue into his mouth and caught it between his lips to suck out it. Steve about came unglued and when he released him, he was swearing under his breath as he pulled him in for another kiss.

“How has this never happened before?”

It was like a lightning strike. He and Steve broke free and were suddenly standing three feet apart, gasping for air, probably looking thoroughly debauched, and staring at Natalia, who was leaning against the closed door, smirking.

“Nat…” Steve gasped. “Nat, I…I’m…”

She held up a hand dismissively, her smirk widening. She looked like the cat who caught the canary. “No, no. Don’t stop on my account. You boys aren’t the only ones who can handle a bit of sharing.”

He and Steve still just stood there gaping. Finally, he managed to shut his mouth and take a few steps towards her. “Natalia…we never…it just…”

She laughed, actually laughed, and met him before he could walk any closer. With an arm around his shoulders, she spun him and pulled him over to Steve so the three of them were huddled together. Steve’s eyes were huge with wariness, but his pupils were still dilated, his perfect lips still swollen and pink. Natalia looped her free arm over Steve’s shoulders, pinning the three of them together. “Boys, it’s okay. Really. I’m fine with it…more than fine with it, actually. I know you’ve loved each other since you were kids and I want you to be happy. And I hope that when you figure this out, there’ll still be a little room for me.”

“Natalia…”

“Nat…”

She sprung up on her toes and gave them both quick kisses to cut them off, then pulled Steve in for a longer one. Her hand on his shoulders wandered to the back of his neck, tugging him down to her neck, and he obliged, laying kiss after kiss along her jaw and what was exposed of her throat. He loved her perfume. It intoxicated him. Even now, just kissing her neck, he couldn’t hold back a growl of desire and he slid his hand to her lower back, pressing her side to him. The movement put his left shoulder to Steve’s right so they were all huddled together and Steve brought his hand up to grip his metal shoulder. Natalia turned her head then, capturing him in a kiss on the mouth that had him instantly delirious and staggering. He was so drunk on feeling warm and wanted for once that, when Natalia broke the kiss and used her hand on the back of his neck to bring his face up to Steve’s, he didn’t hesitate. Then he was kissing Steve again, so different from Natalia. Where Natalia was all flirting kisses and sensual tongue movements that hypnotized him, Steve was unwavering and honest, no tricks, no fancy footwork, just Steve. 

And he loved them both.

As he got wrapped up in Steve again, Natalia left teasing kisses and licks all up and down his neck and Steve’s. When he broke the kiss just enough to tease Steve with a lick to his upper lip, Natalia’s tongue flicked up along his own lower lip, sending a bolt of electricity down his spine. He bent his head just slightly to give her better access and then it was the three of them, kissing back and forth, tongues teasing each other or tracing lips. Natalia bit his lower lip and then Steve kissed the corner of her mouth to free him, distracting her and turning her attention to him. Then, he was interrupting their kiss, finding where their mouths met and drawing a slow line along their lips until Steve turned his head to accept the kiss.

Eventually, Natalia broke away, breathing heavily and wearing a crooked smile. He and Steve were little better, both gasping and leaning their foreheads together for support. “Well boys,” Natalia said in that drawl of hers. “I think our lives just got so much more interesting.”


	16. You Belong to Me

The three of them spent that evening on Natasha’s floor, where she had brought them with the purpose of making stroganoff. Steve had had Nat’s stroganoff before and it was one of his favorite things to eat, but he’d never watched her make it. Now, he was slicing beef, mushrooms, and onions for the dish while Nat walked Bucky through preparing her beloved Russian tea on the other side of the kitchen island. He couldn’t help looking up again and again to watch them and even stare. There was so much on his mind he felt like his brain might explode and it was all to do with them.

He and Bucky were now romantic.

Natasha supported he and Bucky being romantic and had alluded to continuing their relationship as a threesome.

He learned those two things seconds after stopping Bucky from jumping off the Tower.

Steve had to pause for a moment in his task so he wouldn’t cut himself with the way his hands shook. Every time he remembered seeing Bucky up on that railing, panic overrode all rational thought and even overrode his own muscles. He had been two steps up, had barely been holding onto the top rail, had been about to climb over and drop. And if he had…

…if he had…

Steve set down the knife on the counter and felt their eyes snap to him, studying him. He couldn’t meet their gazes and bent his head instead. He felt too sick, too cold and shaky, too foggy to see clearly. All he could see was Bucky falling from that train, Bucky falling from the Tower.

There was movement and then Bucky was crouched between his knees, looking up into his eyes. Bucky laid his right hand on Steve’s bicep and squeezed reassuringly and his expression matched the sentiment, but Steve could still see walls in those steel blue eyes which hid secrets upon secrets. “Hey, come on, Stevie. We’re okay. We’re all here.”

Nausea choked him and he had to fight to get the words out. “And how long do you plan to stay?”

There was no response, Bucky just looked up at him with those broken eyes. Finally, Nat said quietly, “James, come here.”

Bucky stood slowly and Steve watched as he stepped back around the island towards Nat. As he approached, Nat turned to face him and Steve recognized the coolness in her expression. She had just realized exactly what had happened on the roof and there were about to be consequences. Without batting an eye, Natasha backhanded Bucky so hard he stumbled sideways and fell into the island. It was fortunate that he caught himself with his right hand because his metal one would have slipped on the granite and sent him right to the floor. “Fuck,” Bucky groaned as he hauled himself upright. He looked to Natasha warily as she braced herself for a moment on the counter and Steve watched her too. Her face was a blank slate, her green eyes dark and unreadable. Bucky sighed and very cautiously reached towards her. “Natalia…”

Before Steve could blink, the knife he’d been using to slice the mushrooms with was driven through Bucky’s metal hand and into the cutting board. Whether by chance or by skill, Nat had managed to slip the knife between two plates of Bucky’s hand and it went right through the mess of gears and wiring underneath. Natasha kept a white-knuckle grip on the hilt of the knife as Bucky stumbled and struggled to keep his footing with his hand pinned like that. His eyes were wide with panic and the gears in the arm were whirring madly in shifting patterns, trying to free his hand even as little red and white sparks leapt from the damaged robotics. Steve found himself frozen to the spot in shock and horror, but Natasha only watched Bucky struggle coldly. “Listen to me, _liubymij_,” Natasha said softly. “You are not weak and you are not a coward and Steve and I are not those things either. We do not fear the Soldier and we do not fear Hydra. Neither should you. Your life is very valuable to me. You will not take it from me. Do you understand?”

Steve’s jaw was on the floor and Bucky was ashen, his eyes wide. “Natalia,” he whispered. “I…”

“Do you understand?” she said. Her voice was still quiet but far beyond negotiable.

“I…I understand,” Bucky said, gasping. Natasha wrenched the knife free and walked away to rinse it in the sink. Bucky crumpled to the kitchen floor and Steve scrambled around the island to crouch beside him. Bucky was grimacing and clutching at his left hand as if to staunch blood flow, but the sparks just flew and his robotic fingers twitched strangely.

Steve grabbed Bucky’s left wrist hard and tried to hold the hand still as it twitched and sparked. Bucky was silent, but his jaw was made of stone and his eyes were screwed shut. This was at best causing him serious discomfort, at worst severe pain. “Christ, Nat!” he snapped. “Are you insane?! You tore through his fucking hand! Look at all the wires and shit you cut!”

Natasha was still, as if she could feel Steve’s glare burning into her shoulder blades, but then Bucky groaned, “No, Steve. It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay. Buck, look at this…”

“Steve!” Bucky snapped, cutting him off. Steve met his eyes then and saw the shame there mixed with the pain. “This hurts a hell of a lot less than what I did to her and to you tonight. I don’t blame her.” He pulled his hand from Steve’s grasp and stood, then very slowly approached Natasha.

Steve would have avoided her like the plague after that, at least until he was sure she’d calmed down. If he knew anything about Natasha it was that she needed her space. Apparently Bucky didn’t see things that way because, though he moved slowly and much more loudly than he usually did these days, he walked right up to Natasha and slid his right arm around her torso, drawing her back into his embrace. She remained utterly still. As Steve watched in awe, Bucky bent his head and nuzzled at Natasha’s ear, then murmured just barely loud enough that Steve could hear, “I’m sorry, _malenkiy pauk_. I get…caught up in my head and I convince myself that you’d be better off without me and I don’t know what’s real anymore.” Steve noticed that Buck was purposely holding his left hand behind his back, well out of Natasha’s sight. With a jolt, he remembered Natasha’s feelings on being good enough when she had done horrible things in her past and illness flooded his system. _Christ, Nat! Are you insane?! _

Steve eased to his feet and slowly approached Nat and Buck, laying his right hand on Bucky’s right hip and his left on Nat’s left. “Jarvis?” he said softly. “Please restrict Bucky’s access to exclude the roof and any other floors with open balconies.”

Bucky stiffened like a gargoyle, but Natasha took Steve’s hand and kissed it before laying it on her hip once more. From somewhere above them, Jarvis responded quietly, “Consider it done, Captain.”

“And thank you for your thoughtfulness earlier, Jarvis,” Steve added, his voice growing hoarse. Bucky looked at him with tears in his eyes and Natasha was obviously listening closely too. “If not for you…I wouldn’t have been there in time.”

Bucky’s eyes shut tight and a tear leaked from one of them to his cheek. As Natasha reached over her shoulder to brush the tear away and cradle Bucky’s cheek in her hand, Jarvis answered humbly, “Of course, Captain. I only did what I thought was right.”

“See?” Steve said wryly. “Even Jarvis wants you to stick around.”

Bucky snorted and rested his forehead on Natasha’s hair. “He won’t be saying that when the Soldier is installing viruses in the Tower to take the Iron Man suits offline.”

“I can assure you, Sergeant Barnes, that my systems are far more sophisticated than what a mere virus can damage.”

Natasha let out a single laugh and stroked Bucky’s cheekbone with her thumb. “There you are, _liubimyj_. There’s no one in the Tower that’s afraid of the Soldier, not even Jarvis.”

“You should be afraid, doll,” Bucky whispered. “He could have killed you sparring today.”

_What? Had the Soldier broken out during the sparring?_

Natasha shrugged, not at all surprised. “But he didn’t.”

“He could have killed Sam.”

“But he didn’t.”

Bucky sighed deeply and shook his head. “Natalia…”

“James,” she said, cutting him off. “Steve had a _conversation_ with the Soldier this morning that actually went pretty well and he broke out a couple more times today and went right back. If you’re really that concerned, I can put another knife in that arm of yours and demonstrate how not afraid of you I am.” Steve rolled his eyes and just barely managed to bite back a remonstration that Nat apparently spy-whammied out of him anyway. “Shut up, Rogers.”

“Didn’t say anything.”

“Didn’t have to.”

“While I appreciate the gesture, doll, that’s really not necessary,” Bucky said, softly kissing Nat’s hair. “Stark will be after me about the arm as it is, I think, he loves the damn thing, and I really don’t like people fooling around with it.”

Steve sighed, eyeing said arm critically. “We should go there now, Buck, before anything else gets pulled or torn on the inside. Does it hurt?”

Natasha was listening again, also wondering the answer to that question. She’d stabbed his hand without knowing if he had feeling in it? Bucky let out a self-deprecating laugh and released them both, backing away towards the elevator. “Nope. Pain would be a distraction from the mission, a liability.”

Natasha sighed sadly and followed him to the elevator, Steve close behind.

\----------------

As she sat on James’s right side watching Tony tinker with his torn-open left hand, Natasha was working overtime not to show to everyone in the room how horrible and disgusted with herself she felt.

She had _known _that the Soldier had broken out. She had _known _how James felt about that and how unstable and depressed he was. She had _known _what it felt like to believe that everyone was better off without you, that you were nothing but a monster. And despite what had happened in the gym, she had let him wander off by himself anyway, let him go to the roof alone, let him nearly…

No. She couldn’t think it. The image was too painful to even entertain. Even cutting it off like that, she still flinched.

She loved him. She needed him. She had to do something good, something right, and help heal him. She had to remember with him. And none of that was possible if she let him hurt himself.

And the _knife_? What in the actual fuck had she been thinking?

When Tony first saw James’s hand, he blanched and rushed over to cradle it like it was an actual hand on someone who was deeply important to him. “What did you do to it? This thing is practically indestructible and you managed to punch a hole in it!”

James had just shrugged and said, “Accident. Can you fix it?”

“Can I fix it,” Tony scoffed. “Of course, I can fix it. And I’m going to start working on an upgrade so this doesn’t happen again.”

“That’s really not necessary…”

“Not optional!”

James, who had immediately defended her batshit-crazy actions when Steve admonished her, who had come to her and held her and _apologized_ to _her_, was currently holding her hands in his right one, occasionally squeezing them when Tony tugged on something or flicked on a drill. It wasn’t pain, she knew that now, but anxiety and PTSD, probably from being bolted down to a table while Hydra worked on the arm, maybe from when Department X originally attached it. She squeezed his hand back to bring him back to reality and brushed her thumbs over his hand to soothe him. It was the least she could do after she _put a fucking knife in his hand._

It had been a split-second decision that she hardly understood. She knew that she’d been sick of James not listening to her and Steve when they told him how much he mattered to them. He just wouldn’t believe them and he didn’t matter enough to himself. For so long, he’d been an object possessed by others, not his own person capable of making his own decisions and having his own feelings and desires. She hated to be like Hydra in any way, fucking _hated it_¸ but in that split-second, she’d decided that that was what he needed.

He needed to be possessed by someone. As someone else’s possession, he became valuable in his own eyes and became important to protect in the way that you would protect a valuable object that someone else had entrusted to you for safekeeping. It made her sick, but in retrospect, she’d been right in that moment. Maybe the knife hadn’t been required to get her point across, but it certainly helped to drive it home and, based on James’s actions since, her words had made an impact, one that might save his life.

Steve kept pacing around the lab, eyeing the strange devices and the robots cruising around warily as an attempt to distract himself from what was going on. James was going in and out of a dissociative state where he’d stare blankly at the ceiling for a while, out of his own head, then come back with pained expressions and a racing heart. Studying him, she realized abruptly that he had moved into the position he was in completely automatically and had not moved an inch since sitting down, nor had he made a sound.

He was used to this and he hated it. He may have even been tortured in this position. At the very least, he’d been strapped down in it and had the arm experimented on.

Bile rose in her throat and she looked to Tony, who was still peering through his magnifiers into the arm. “Tony?” she interrupted. It took saying his name twice more before he paused, hands perfectly still, and looked up at her. “How much longer?” she asked, tilting her head towards James’s face. He’d come back into an anxiety attack that he was silencing well but obviously suffering from.

Tony’s eyes widened and Steve had moved closer to run his fingers through James’s hair and whisper soothing things to him, reminding him over and over of where he was, when it was, who he was with. Steve had coached him through panic attacks before. Tony, who she knew was very aware of how anxiety and PTSD worked, had gone pale. “Too long. I have a severed cable that has to be properly repaired if he wants his fingers to work at least. Three more wires if he wants feeling in the hand.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “He has feeling in his hand? He said it couldn’t feel pain.”

Tony turned back to his work as he talked. “It can’t. They didn’t build anything resembling pain receptors into it. He’s got pressure pads, though, that he’s going to want for full functionality. Going without would be like having fully-mobile fingers that are totally numb. Can’t hold onto things, can’t tell if you’re actually picking something up properly or about to drop it, can’t tell if you’re squeezing too tight. With the strength that’s built into it, that could be a huge problem.”

Steve groaned and returned to trying to calm James. Natasha glanced up at James’s face, which was lined with fear and discomfort. Maybe even…_violation._ She looked back to Tony. “Okay, so he needs these cables and wires. If it’s going to be awhile yet, can we at least move him? I think this is a stress position for him.”

She could hear Steve grinding his teeth and Tony stiffened. “Sure. What do you want to do?”

Natasha looked to Steve for ideas and he sighed sadly. “We can’t lay him on his back. He was strapped to a table for God knows how long in Azzano. How long will it be? Can we sit him upright on a stool or something?”

“Only if he can stay perfectly still,” Tony said as he reached into the hand with a tweezers.

Steve ran his fingers through James’s hair again and said softly, “Buck? You wanna try that? I happen to know that you used to be able to sit on a tree branch for thirty hours straight and not be seen.”

James squeezed her hand twice in a row and she nodded. “He’s good with that. Back off, Tony, let him wake up a bit.”

Tony grimaced and worked for a minute more with the tweezers, then removed it and wheeled a good ten feet away on his stool. “Alright, Terminator. The floor is yours.”

Natasha bent to kiss James’s knuckles while Steve continued to talk to him. Sooner than she’d expected, he opened his slate-blue eyes to look right at her. Immediately, his brow furrowed and he squeezed her hand. “It’s okay, Natalia. I’m okay.”

She didn’t believe him for an instant, but she could see that he was at least trying to be okay, which was an improvement from the last few days. She kissed his knuckles again, and, when he began to sit forward and test his muscles, she tightened her grip and helped him to his feet.

The procedure seemed to go easier on James’s mind when he was on a stool rather than in the big chair Tony had initially put him in. Steve was right that he could sit perfectly still and stay that way as long as it took, which ended up being over an hour more of Tony nosing around in the hand with tweezers and a soldering iron. Now, James was shifting between anxiety attacks and being merely tense, which was a huge improvement. When it was done, Tony rolled away again and pulled off his magnifiers. James blinked and tested out his muscles, which seemed to have gone a bit stiff while he sat so still. “Thanks, Tony,” James said, his metal hand clasping and unclasping normally at his side.

“Don’t mention it,” Tony said. “I’ll have that upgrade soon.”

They started for the elevator and were almost there when Tony called, “Oh, Red? Step into my office.”

She groaned and grimaced at Steve and James. “Go ahead,” she said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

She watched them step into the elevator and disappear, them stalked towards Tony. “Yes, Shellhead?”

Tony was polishing the tools he’d used on James’s arm as he narrowed his eyes at her. “Well, now that your lovers are gone, I think it’s a good time to talk about whatever the hell happened tonight.”

“I don’t know…”

“Ah, ah! No spy whammy! You and Terminator are infuriatingly difficult to read, but not Cap. The whole time you guys were here, his face was screaming at me _Natasha put a knife in Bucky’s hand and I don’t know what to do._”

She glared at him and at the voice he’d given Steve. “He does not sound like that.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “But you did put a knife in Terminator’s hand and fuck up about a million dollars’ worth of technology.”

She swallowed hard, tempted to walk out, but she couldn’t. It was all too damn raw. She schooled her face, then quietly answered, “He tried to kill himself.”

Tony turned to stone. It was nearly a minute later that he finally said in a hushed voice, “Tonight?”

She nodded. “He almost jumped off the roof. Jarvis told Steve there was something wrong. If he hadn’t, no one would have been up there to stop him.”

“Jarvis?”

“Sir, Captain Rogers has already restricted Sergeant Barnes’s floor access to exclude the roof and all floors with open balconies.”

Tony breathed a shuddery sigh of relief. “Good. Jesus. Well…why the knife?”

“You won’t understand.”

“Try me.”

She looked to him and saw a similar combination of weariness and anxiety to that which she felt herself. “We’ve been trying to convince him that his life is worth keeping, but he won’t listen. He doesn’t believe us, he’s too scared of the Soldier. When I found out that he’d tried to…well. I threatened him. It was the only thing we hadn’t tried and it was the first thing that came to my mind up against the wall like that. I pinned him with the knife and I told him that he belongs to me and that he cannot take himself from me.”

Tony shook his head slowly. “That’s…messed up. Did that work?”

She nodded. “It did. I knew it would. We’re conditioned in the same way.”

Tony’s frown deepened. “What does that mean?”

“It means there’s a reason I sold my soul to SHIELD. Sometimes you need someone to hold your leash.” With that, she turned her back on him and stalked to the elevator. He let her go.

\----------

He would have preferred to crawl into bed and hide there for a very long time, but Steve refused to let him and, when prompted, replied quite sensibly that super-soldier bellies don’t fill themselves and the makings for stroganoff were still out in Natalia’s kitchen.

So, they went there and Steve returned to his task of slicing and dicing things, though he made a point to grab a knife from the block rather than use the one Natalia had stuck in his stupid hand.

He had deserved it, one hundred percent. And, once she made things clear to him, he found himself breathing a little bit easier, even if he felt even more guilty over what happened on the roof.

He had a purpose. He belonged to Natalia, she had made that abundantly clear, and he knew exactly what that meant. He had to stay alive, he had to maintain his physical health, he had to obey her rules, he had to give her whatever she needed. With previous handlers, that had been…painful. In many ways, based on his shoddy memory.

It would not be painful with Natalia. Hell, he half-worshipped her anyway, so this seemed to be just confirming the current state of affairs as official.

He had purpose. He had value. He had guidelines. He’d spent so much of the last few weeks not knowing what to do with himself. It was probably at least a part of why he’d kept concluding that his life was worthless and risky to keep in commission. Now, though, now he had tasks and reasons to do them.

Natalia liked to spar with him and part of what she enjoyed about that was that they made good opponents. So, he had a reason to spend quality time in the gym and spar with others as well to keep himself in good form. Natalia had a nasty habit of losing track of time, especially when she most needed to be broken out of her own head. He had a reason to make a point to check on her periodically and make sure she wasn’t dancing herself to death again. Natalia was not good at getting drunk but liked drinking. He had a reason to drink with her and make sure she wasn’t being unhealthy about it, again with the dancing herself to death and reeking of vodka the next day. Natalia liked it when Steve was happy, so he had a reason to help keep Steve happy.

The list continued on a similar wavelength. All these things that he’d made a habit of or knew he enjoyed suddenly had greater importance. With previous handlers, there had been…things he didn’t want to do…that had to be done. He definitely remembered burying bodies, making extra kills, guarding a door while one handler had his way with a civilian girl, and…

His skull threatened to split.

…worse things.

He massaged his temple to work out the feeling of having an icepick driven into his eye socket and refocused on what Steve was doing. Steve was silent. Not a good sign, he remembered that surely enough. “Are you still upset with me or with Natalia?”

Steve ground his teeth and slid the mushrooms into a large bowl, then grabbed the onion to work on slicing that. “I am upset with you, but any anger I felt is definitely gone thanks to Nat. I can’t believe she put a fucking knife in your hand.”

He shrugged so Steve would know he meant it when he said, “I did deserve it. And it’s not like it hurt.”

Steve’s wide blue eyes snapped up to meet his. “Christ, Buck, you did not deserve it.”

So much for that. He sighed and shrugged again. “I kind of did. I got…wrapped up in my own head. I thought I was doing something that was right for both of you, something noble, but I wasn’t even thinking about how either of you would actually _feel_ about me doing that. I knew rationally that you wanted me here, but I didn’t think that wanting someone around really translated as worth more than…whatever could happen with the Soldier popping up all over. And Hydra. They’re probably all sitting around their Table of Evil with the blueprints to this building and a box of highlighters as we speak.”

Steve stared at him for a long time, then gave an indulgent sigh and said, “Jarvis? What is the likelihood that a Hydra operative could obtain access to blueprints of this building?”

He raised an eyebrow and looked up at the nothing-space that was Jarvis. “The odds of blueprints for Avengers Tower being accessed by a Hydra operative run between thirty and forty percent, sir. Mr. Stark is very secretive, but copies may exist in the possession of various contractors. Obtaining blueprints this way would result in a very spotty picture of the overall building, but the blueprints would be, by definition, obtained.”

He looked to Steve and they shrugged simultaneously, conceding that they were both wrong. “Anyway,” he said, “I’m not very good with people nowadays and my self-worth is apparently in the toilet, so my brain decided that what I was thinking was fact and that I needed to do something about it. I was wrong and I am sorry.” There were tears in Steve’s eyes, which absolutely gutted him because a part of him _knew_ the way Steve internalized things. He sighed and nodded to the knife, which Steve put down. Without any sharp objects between them, he moved around the counter and stood between Steve’s knees, enveloping him in a hug. Steve immediately started to quietly cry into his chest and illness and guilt pervaded him once more. He tightened his grip on Steve’s shoulders and said softly to him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put you through that. It’s not going to happen again.”

Steve picked his head up at that and looked at him through watery, red-rimmed eyes. “I need you to swear to me. Buck, please.”

“I swear,” he said, absolutely meaning it. He was Natalia’s and maybe to some degree Steve’s too. He could not hurt himself. “It’s not going to happen again.”

Steve’s hands dug into his back and he began crying quietly into his shoulder again. On a whim, he rested his head on Steve’s and shut his eyes, breathing him in. Steve smelled like soap, leather, fresh air, and Steve. It was enough to uncoil the tension in his core and make him feel safe, even from himself. A beautiful, beautiful light shone in the far corner of his mind and he remembered what it had been like, all three of them on the roof, kissing in the snow. Belonging to Natalia was such a relief. Maybe he could belong to Steve too? He’d seen the look on Steve’s face when Natalia said those words to him earlier, though, when she’d claimed him. That wasn’t how Steve’s brain worked. He was all about freedom and individualism, which were great things, but he just didn’t know how to process that right now. Having a handler who was kind to him was novel enough.

“Steve?” he said quietly. Steve nodded against his shoulder, his tears beginning to taper off. “Tell me I’m yours.”

“Buck,” Steve said weakly. “You don’t belong to me or anyone else…”

“Stevie, please,” he said. Steve went silent and some nasty part of his brain hiding away whispered that he’d done something wrong, he’d pushed his luck, and he was going to be punished for it. With his heart pounding in his head, he licked his lips and whispered, “I’m…I’m conditioned to need to belong to someone. That’s why Natalia said what she did before. She was telling me that I belong with her and that I have meaning with her. I know that’s not very…” a chuckle escaped him and he finished, “Captain America. But I think it’s what my mind needs right now.”

Steve’s arms tightened around him as he said, “Jesus, Buck. I can’t…you’re…”

“Just say the damn words, Steve,” Natalia said as she stalked into the kitchen from the direction of the elevator. Neither of them let go of the other, but both of them looked to Natalia, Steve startled, him relieved. She raised an eyebrow at them, then snatched a fresh mushroom from the bowl, ate it, and moved close enough to slide into their hug. They let her in and she laid a warm kiss to the side of his neck, followed by the whispered words, “What are you, _liubimyj_?”

“Yours,” he answered automatically.

“Yes.” She laid another kiss on his neck that sent warmth flooding through his whole system. “You’re mine, _liubimyj_. I’m never going to hurt you or use you. Ever. Do you understand?”

Those were such catastrophically important words that before he knew it, he was crying into her hair and clutching her to him with the arm that wasn’t around Steve. Steve was stroking his back soothingly and probably looking on with serious confusion, but he couldn’t look up to verify that right then. Instead, as Natalia laid slow, warm kisses across his shoulder and neck, he whimpered, actually _whimpered_, “Fuck, doll. Do _you_ understand?”

She sighed sadly and kissed his hair, “I do, _liubimyj_, very well.” A face flashed across his retinas, a narrow face with sharp eyes and an unkind grin, a face attached to a man he hated, absolutely hated. He couldn’t remember his name or what he’d done, but the timing suggested he’d been a handler of Natalia’s and not a kind one. Very seriously, Natalia added, “There’s one more part to this. No one else is going to hurt you or use you. You’re mine. That means they have to come through me if they want that.”

Memories, endless horrible memories, flooded his mind, sending shots of pain through his head and his soul. He fell to his knees at her feet and buried his face in her lap and his hands in her oversized sweater. Vaguely, he was aware that he was crying like a child, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t. 

Not when he was seeing the faces of all those previous handlers. 

The ones who took turns beating him or torturing him, making bets on how long a cut or bruise or broken bone would take to heal. The ones who made him hold women down while they raped them. The ones who pointed out civilians at random as extra kills to take. The ones who made him blow them or their whole squad on an op. The ones who knocked him to his knees and made him stay still and silent while they and their squad fucked him until he was bleeding, until he was torn open so badly that even with the serum it took days to heal.

Natalia sank to her knees in front of him and very carefully wrapped her arms around him, hands drawing slow circles over his back. “Shh. It’s okay, _liubimyj._ You’re mine now. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you or use you. What is it I say about men who lay hands on me?”

She knew. Either she remembered from before or she read it off his face. It was, no doubt, an expression she would know. Softly, he responded with that phrase, “That they will no longer have hands.”

She kissed the top of his head and gently brought his face down to her upper chest. Her sweater was so soft and heavy, perfect for being cozy on a cold night like this one. And it smelled of her amazing perfume, bergamot, incense, and raspberries. “That’s also you now, _liubimyj_. The next person who dares lay a hand on you is going to lose that hand and a hell of a lot more.”

There was an endlessly sad sigh and Steve sank to the floor beside them and, with incredible slowness and gentleness, wrapped his big arms around both of them and laid a kiss on his hair. “You’re mine too, Buck,” he murmured, his voice choppy from tears. “I swear to God I’ll never hurt you or use you and no one else will either. I swear. Not as long as you’re mine and as long as that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll be. Okay? Mine.”

Warmth raced through his veins, seeping into every cell, telling him over and over, _You’re safe and wanted._ He was still crying like a child as, without raising his head from Natalia’s breast, he found Steve’s hands and intertwined their fingers. Steve squeezed him harder than would be considered comfortable for most people, but he needed it, needed that reassurance of Steve’s strength, that Steve could take care of himself, that Steve could take care of _him_ if necessary.

“I love you both,” he breathed when the tears had dried up. “Do you know that? I love you both so damn much.”

Natalia tilted his chin up with one finger and pressed a slow kiss to his lips that made him hungry for more. “I know, _liubimyj_. And I love you.”

Then Steve’s forehead was resting against his temple and, when Steve spoke, his breath fell on his cheek and lips. “And I love you, jerk.”

“Punk,” he said with a snort. As Steve turned his face, he turned to meet him and was dealt another long kiss, this one amazingly gentle and honest and devoted. When they stopped, he said softly, “You know that you have this way of saying exactly what you mean? You do it with kissing too and it’s the best damn thing.”


	17. A Day With The Soldier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was very difficult to write. I basically scrapped a whole character and replaced him, which was unsettling, and I kept second-guessing myself over everything he said and did. I'm still second-guessing, so please let me know your thoughts in the comments. Thanks!

Once again, Steve scarcely slept that night. He was discovering that, probably thanks to the serum, he needed a lot less sleep than he used to but deprivation still made him feel stiff and weary. It took engaging the killswitch and Nat whispering a Russian lullaby that made him fall in love with her even more before Bucky did eventually fall asleep. Nat seemed to sleep at times, but he suspected that it was light, disrupted sleep, maybe even feigned for his benefit.

On one of the occasions that Bucky went rigid in his sleep and his face creased into an unconscious grimace, Steve very cautiously stroked his human arm over and over, trying to soothe him back to a restful sleep. Natasha sighed sadly where she was lying between them and pressed a barely-there kiss to Bucky’s throat. “I don’t know what to do, Steve. I’m worried about him.”

_You and me both._ “I sure didn’t think it at the time, but you did the right thing earlier. The things you said to him.”

“It’s no different than this damn killswitch,” she murmured in frustration.

“But the killswitch works.”

“It does. And this should too.”

“You don’t think he’ll find a way to talk himself around this? This…ownership thing?” It sounded dirty and cold to say out loud and it made his skin crawl. Bucky, his Bucky, who’d been so much his own man, had cried at Natasha’s feet because she promised not to make him do things he didn’t want to do. Tears burned his eyes and for the thousandth time since he realized that Bucky was alive, he screamed at himself in his head for not having gone back for him and pulled him out of that ravine. What had they made him do that he was so traumatized by? Steve wanted to know and he didn’t. He wanted to know so he could help Bucky deal with it and so he could help him hunt down whatever Hydra operatives were left. He didn’t want to know because he wasn’t sure he could bear the knowledge.

Nat smoothly lifted herself off the bed enough to roll and face him without disturbing Bucky. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held his gaze. Her green eyes shone in the dim bedroom and sadness curved her brows and lips. “I think he will,” she said sadly. “Eventually he’s going to need control too badly for it to work anymore. My hope is that he’ll have a better hold on things before that happens. Tony talked about getting him professional help. Where are we on that?”

“I scheduled an appointment. It’ll be here on the conference level, so we won’t have to worry about security issues. Tony claims she’s one of the best.”

“Good,” Nat said softly. “He needs that.”

They lay there in silence for a long time, thinking and feeling. Nat brushed her nose against his and kissed him softly, then said against his lips, “Thank you for reassuring him. He needs you.”

“I’ve never seen him like that,” Steve said weakly, looking over her shoulder at Bucky’s perfectly still sleeping form. Weak was the most constant feeling he had lately. Too weak to save Bucky, too weak to save Nat, too weak to control his own emotions. “I’ve never seen him that…broken. Not after Azzano. Not after Budapest. It makes me sick to think of what they must’ve done to break him like that.”

Natasha kissed him again and he brought his eyes back to hers. They were molten with sadness and secrets, all boiling together. “I know you don’t want to hear this, Steve, but breaking him was all they did, over and over. They had to to keep his conditioning up. Look at how quickly he started thinking for himself and remembering things after DC. He managed that because he didn’t have them breathing down his neck, ready to punish any sign that he was in his own head.”

Steve gritted his teeth to hold in a sob and buried his face in her hair as he began to cry silently. “He’s my best friend. And they tortured him. They _unmade_ him. For seventy fucking years.”

“I know, Steve. He’s here now, though. He’s here because of you. You helped him remember. It was because of you he went AWOL and you brought him here where he can be safe. You did good.”

Amidst the tears, mostly his and a few of hers too, he began kissing her and she reciprocated with soft, warm kisses, gentle and reassuring. They were all safe, they were all there for each other, none of them were alone anymore. 

Perhaps an hour after Natasha dozed off, before the first rays of dawn could seep over the horizon, he felt Bucky stiffen awake. Steve took a fortifying breath, then looked to his face. He must’ve felt his gaze on him, because his steel blue eyes instantly opened and locked on him. “Captain America,” he said, somewhat derisive and with a Russian accent.

“Soldier,” Steve returned wearily. He had so been hoping that Bucky would be the one to wake up beside them.

The Soldier glared at the metal arm pinning him to the bed, then at Steve. “I see this is now standard protocol.”

“It is. You wanted it that way. I actually tried to talk you out of it.” The Soldier narrowed his eyes suspiciously. He would probably always be suspicious and Steve supposed that he had earned the right to that. Steve took a deep breath, then said, “There’s something I want to talk to you about. Are you ever aware of anything during your…blackouts? Or is that all they are to you?”

The Soldier’s frown deepened. “I don’t…I don’t think so.”

“So, you don’t remember being on the roof last night?”

The Soldier’s brow furrowed and, for a moment, Steve thought he might have a suspicion of where this conversation was going. “Why was I on the roof last night?”

Steve swallowed, but the words came out broken anyway. “To kill yourself. You tried to jump.”

The Soldier went rigid and he shook his head slowly, the wheels turning behind his eyes. “That’s not possible…I am the property…” He stopped shaking his head and the frown deepened. “I am not Hydra property anymore. Why did I try to kill myself?”

_I am the property of Hydra. That’s what he’d been about to say. Nat was right. _Tears pricked at Steve’s eyes, but he willed them not to fall. “You were afraid of yourself…of the Soldier. You were afraid of what the Soldier might do to people you care about and you were afraid of what would happen if Hydra ever captured you.”

The Soldier scowled. “Nothing will happen if I kill them first. This other me…he must be your Bucky?” Steve nodded, chilled to the very bone by this strange conversation. “I do not think he is working very hard at finding the Hydra bases you promised we would be destroying together. Perhaps he forgets how easy it is to kill Hydra operatives. He did it at Azzano, he ought to remember.”

A jolt went through Steve. “You know that he burned Azzano? How do you know?”

“Sometimes it is not all black and white,” the Soldier said with a shrug. “You know this, Widow.” Steve eyed Nat and realized that yes, she was definitely awake and listening. “Sometimes my mind shifts back and forth. Sometimes I can feel Bucky fighting for control…sometimes he is in control and I can fight him for it. The Widow knows this because it happened while she was sparring with Bucky yesterday.”

Steve’s eyes bulged and he looked down at Nat, who was worrying her lip between her teeth. “Nat? Something you want to tell me?”

“Well, he kind of just told you. That’s part of why James was so upset with himself last night…having the Soldier get out like that scared him.”

The Soldier rolled his eyes. _Rolled his eyes._ “This Bucky seems to be afraid of everything.”

“Bucky is the bravest man I have ever known,” Steve said fiercely, cutting him off. “You say you saw him burn Azzano. Do you remember what happened to him there?”

The Soldier glared. “The pieces they make me remember, yes. I remember very well the way the serum burned my veins and my brain. I remember the first time they put me in the chair. It is good that you found me when you did, Captain. Not much longer and I would not have known you.”

_The chair._ The same mental recalibration chair Bucky had spoken of last night? The same that was referenced in Bucky’s Hydra file? Sickness clenched at his gut and he remembered finding Bucky in Azzano. Once again, he was seeing that thousand-yard stare as Bucky recited his name, rank, and serial number over and over. What if it hadn’t just been a grounding technique? What if it had actually been him trying to remember? And the blank way he’d looked at Steve, the way it had taken him a moment to recognize his name and his face? “The chair. The mental recalibration chair?”

Natasha stiffened as the Soldier nodded, his jaw tense with discomfort. “The same. It was merely a prototype in 1943, ‘fried more brains than it scrambled’ a technician said to me as he strapped me to it, but yes.”

He cringed at that, hating the disgusting images that came to mind of electric chairs and sparks flying. “So, you remember what happened. Bucky didn’t give Hydra any information. None. When I came for him, he walked right with me out of that complex. He stared down Arnim Zola and Johann Schmidt with me and he jumped halfway across a burning warehouse to escape. Do you remember what he said to me right after he made that jump? I told him to go on without me and get out.” The Soldier shook his head, frowning deeply, trying to remember. There was no sign that he would remember, though, or that Bucky would take over. “The warehouse was burning and about to blow beneath us, I had just gotten him out of that lab and saved his life so he could go home to his ma and his sisters. I didn’t think I could make the jump so I told him to go, but he grabbed that railing and said, ‘No. Not without you.’ Not the words of a coward.”

The Soldier sighed in defeat. “Perhaps. I suspect that the man you held back from killing himself last night bears very little resemblance to the Bucky of 1943, though.”

“Bucky is not a coward,” Steve repeated through gritted teeth.

The Soldier gave him a dry look and tapped his fingernails on the frozen metal arm. “He is not a coward, but he is too afraid _of himself_ to sleep with both arms functional.”

“He sees that as a way to protect Nat and I. Are you saying he has nothing to fear from you in that regard?”

For a minute, the Soldier just glared at him and Natasha, then he growled his annoyance and said, “That would be correct. I have no intention of physically harming either of you. For all of your lies and inconveniences, you do present me with ample resources to hunt Hydra and you apparently prevent _Bucky_ from doing stupid things when I am gone. If you believe me, a suitable sign of shared trust would be to engage my arm.”

Steve raised an eyebrow at that and looked down at Nat. She looked even more skeptical than him, but narrowed her eyes at the Soldier and said, “We have no explicit instructions as to who can reengage your arm and when.”

The Soldier raised an eyebrow. “That seems like a serious flaw in Bucky’s plan. Regardless, I will need the arm to get out of this fucking bed.”

“Got somewhere to be?” Yesterday, the Soldier had retreated as soon as they’d said his name. Apparently, he had plans to keep control a little longer today.

“Wherever a secure internet connection can be found. I have contacts to commune with.”

Steve’s eyebrows both shot up in surprise at that. “The Winter Soldier has contacts? I thought your contacts were managed by Hydra.”

The Soldier rolled his eyes again and it was _such a Bucky thing to do_ that it made his chest ache. “The Winter Soldier has always been much smarter than Hydra gave him credit for and used the knowledge Hydra gave him to curate contacts after he defected. The arm, Captain?”

He sighed in defeat, reached behind him for the killswitch, then said to the Soldier, “Call me Steve, though. Bucky only called me Captain when he wanted to annoy me, so it’s very strange coming from you.”

The Soldier scoffed and, for that brief moment, Steve could see very deep, very real emotion boiling in those eyes he knew so well. “Maybe that’s why I’m doing it too, _Captain_.”

Steve almost dropped the switch, fumbling with it at the last second. The Soldier raised one eyebrow at him in a challenge.

He flipped the switch.

The Soldier began by wiggling his fingers, then looked down at his arm, sat up in bed, and began working every component of the arm one-by-one in an ops check. When he was satisfied, he peered at the tiny switch for a moment, then asked, “This is Tony Stark’s work, yes?”

“Yeah.”

The Soldier chuckled darkly. “After you were gone, Howard Stark was always the most painful thorn in Hydra’s side. It cheers me to know that his son has taken up that mantle.”

Nausea wracked Steve and he studied the Soldier’s face closely. “Bucky remembers a lot of the kills. He says you killed Howard and his wife.”

Natasha stiffened like a gargoyle, which the Soldier catalogued before turning to Steve with a stony expression. “Orders,” he said bitterly. “There were always more orders and when I did not comply, they had ways of making me.”

“Did you remember him?” Steve said softly, afraid of setting him off but needing to know. “You knew Howard during the war. Did you remember him?”

Pain and sadness flooded the Soldier’s eyes as he stood up out of bed. “Let me put it this way, Steve,” he said, his voice cracking on Steve’s name. “The early models of the chair were not very precise and did not work very well. I spent much time in cryofreeze because it eased the recalibrating and conditioning.”

A brick fell into his stomach. “They…_froze _you?”

The Soldier batted that away as if it hardly mattered. But Steve had been frozen and he knew exactly how awful it was. “The later models, though, they were far more precise and advanced. Now they could choose which memories to keep and which to take.” The weight in that gaze threatened to crush Steve. “They made sure that I would remember the things they could hurt me with. So yes, I remembered Howard. They gave me back those memories, and then they placed a black folder in my hands.”

With nothing more, the Soldier disappeared to the bathroom, not locking the door or even shutting it all the way before Steve heard water running. He’d probably spent too much time behind locked doors.

When Nat wrapped her arms around him and kissed his forehead, he realized that he was shaking and on the very edge of tears. “Shh…” she murmured. “Shh…he’s safe now. He’s here now.”

“Nat…fuck, Nat, they…”

“I know,” she whispered. “I know.”

\--------------

It took Natasha quite some time to calm Steve down before she could convince him to go to his own floor or the gym, whichever he needed, and get some space. The Soldier apparently wasn’t going to slip away so easily today, which made sense if he’d been the one doing most of the work destroying those Hydra bases, and it was too much with the strain Steve was under for him to spend quality time with this distorted version of his best friend.

It wasn’t quite the same for her, though. She’d known the _Soldat_ as well as she’d known James and there had never been a Bucky for her to lose. Most importantly, the Soldier was very much like her. He was a weapon created by monsters and brainwashed to do monstrous things at their bidding. He had the very same demons, the same red in his ledger, and, like she had, he was now in the stage of destroying his captors one-by-one. The difference was that he didn’t remember every Hydra base the way she’d remembered the Red Room’s location and he had far more work to do if his goal was to destroy all of Hydra, which it apparently was. He had a mission.

And so did she.

James was _hers._ She’d promised him that. And that meant that the Soldier could not be allowed to use his hands to do things he’d regret. Furthermore, the Soldier could not be allowed to put him, them, in mortal danger. Mortal danger had a different definition for the Winter Soldier than most people, obviously, but it was still her job to do what she could not to let him get himself killed or captured. At the very least, she needed to keep him within range of the killswitch in case he was captured. That was one of the switch’s main purposes. For all of those reasons, it was important that she help him formulate his plans if he let her and help him execute them whether he liked it or not.

And, in the meantime, he might have answers that she wanted. That was what she was thinking as she dressed post-shower, arming herself to the teeth under her clothes, her new Bites that looked like silver bracelets on her wrists, a garrote wrapped around her forearm, knives strapped to her arms and calves, guns at her ankle, hip, and lower back. If she was the Widow to him, that was who she would be.

“_Soldat_,” she said coolly as she walked into the kitchen and found him sitting in front of her laptop, which he’d apparently managed to hack into, with a cup of coffee near his left hand. “Did your mother not teach you not to touch things that aren’t yours?”

“Nothing is mine, Widow,” he said with a scowl. “If I obeyed such rules, I would need to cut off my own hands so as never to touch anything. Your encryption is impressive.”

She started the tea kettle and approached to peer over his shoulder. “Not impressive enough, it seems. I didn’t know you had a hacker side.”

“Enough to get by,” he said with a shrug. He appeared to be in some sort of Russian chatroom. She could of course read the words, but it was heavily coded and made little sense at first glance. He took a sip of the coffee and she could smell the bitterness wafting off of it. “This coffee is better than most I have had, but still _der’mo_,” he said.

She couldn’t help laughing. She had missed being able to drop Russian profanities and have someone understand them. “I’m making tea that I’ll share if you’re nice to me. Or you could put something in the coffee so it doesn’t taste like motor oil. Steve likes creamer. I like vodka.”

He perked up at that option and she retrieved the vodka from the freezer without a word, setting the bottle in front of him. He eyed the label, then began to pour. He poured almost exactly as much as she usually did. “You still drink the same vodka, Widow.”

“You remember me?”

His jaw tightened and he took a long drink of the coffee. “Some things. The things they let me keep.”

“The things they could use to hurt you,” she finished quietly, remembering very vividly what he had said about Howard Stark. “They left me with nothing. I’m only just now remembering, however many decades later. Spending time with James…Bucky and with you is helping.”

The Soldier was frowning deeply, but pretending to focus on the laptop screen. “Are you so sure you want to remember, Widow? Everything I remember opens new wounds.”

That stilled her and she leaned against the table beside him, though he refused to look up at her. “_Soldat_,” she said. “Do you remember the end of us? Would you tell me what happened?”

“I remember enough that I must grant you the kindness of not knowing,” he said, his voice brittle. “I did care for you, Widow, and they used that to hurt us both. It is better that it remains forgotten.”

She shot a glare at him she knew he could see in his peripheral vision. “Is it better that it be remembered at inconvenient times? James remembered some of my Red Room missions while I was _gone_ on a mission a few weeks ago and it about tore him apart. And if he’d remembered, he would have insisted I play it safer. Tell me how not knowing helped anyone there.”

The Soldier looked at her levelly. “We cannot change the past, Widow, only how it affects us. Bucky knew that he cared for you and he knew that you are prone to risky behavior for the sake of the mission. How much would particular memories have impacted his desire or ability to keep you from doing your job? And if they had changed things, would you have saved those women and killed those buyers?” She couldn’t help stiffening and he tilted his head. “I surprised you. You do not normally betray yourself like this. That was not just Bucky standing in that private room in Budapest watching you carve off a man’s hands. That was me as well and I can assure you, it hurt me just as much as it hurt him. There is a difference between us, though, isn’t there, Widow? Where he would protect you from harm the way the Captain does by locking you up here, I appreciate the work you do and the power you take from the monsters you vanquish. There is much that he knows and I don’t about how you ought to be cared for between missions, but I would never stop you from doing what you do the way you do it.”

“Anything for the mission,” she said softly.

“_Da_.” He refocused on the screen. “My contact can get the blueprints I need. Do I need to arrange my own transportation?”

At his raised eyebrow, she smirked, translating that question easily. “Transport is on me as soon as I get clearance from Tony. When you draft your plans use a team of three, including one doorbuster and one spy.” He chuckled at that. As she walked away, she paused and turned to look at the back of his head. He’d let his hair dry at wild angles post-shower, nothing like “Bucky,” and while she did miss James’s gentleness, attentiveness, teasing, everything that he was, she did find she liked this other persona too, right down to the wild hairstyle. “_Soldat._” He looked at her curiously and she gave him a flirty smile. “I didn’t expect to like you this much.”

The Soldier chuckled again. “Bucky will be jealous.”

“See, that’s the thing,” she said. “I never knew Bucky. I know you and I know the other side of you that walks around now. James. I think James wonders how I could have loved you and there have been times these last few weeks where I’ve wondered that too. But I did and parts of me do now.”

The Soldier frowned deeply and stood, moving to her in a moment. His eyes were dark and molten, locked on her lips. “Widow…”

“That’s not my name. Not anymore.”

He sighed. “_Natalia_. I’m not a man you can love. James can be that, but I cannot. I am a weapon.”

She shrugged one shoulder, noting that his eyes were still on her lips and when she took a step forward further into his personal space, his hands fisted at his sides. “I was a weapon too, still am sometimes. Was this weapon the last woman to kiss you, _Soldat_? When was that?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Stop trying to compromise me, Widow.”

She chuckled and stood up on toe to whisper against his pulse point, “You’re already compromised, _Soldat_. You’ve always been compromised. That’s why I’m alive, isn’t it? You shot through me in Odessa without killing me. You shot me again in DC in the shoulder when you could have hit my heart.”

Before she could blink, he had slammed her back against the kitchen cupboard and had her pinned there by his hips and metal hand. The human one shoved up her shirt just enough that he could see her scar from Odessa. A low growl escaped him and he shut his eyes tight as if to fight for control. She waited and, finally, he said, “The serum should have healed that. It shouldn’t have scarred like that.”

“The serum did heal it, but I don’t have quite the same cocktail as you or Steve. I have plenty of scars that haven’t fully faded and won’t. So, you see, _Soldat_, that I already want you and I already know you want the same. The evidence is right there on my skin. So, who was the last woman to kiss you?”

He sighed in defeat, looked deep into her eyes, then bent his head and kissed her. They kissed once very slowly, but then it was like a dam breaking and their hands were all over each other, mouths needy and rough on each other. He didn’t kiss or touch exactly the way James did, though there were similarities, details she could pick out and say were identical. But where James liked to kiss deliberately, with a great deal of calculation and skill, the Soldier was using the muscle memory but without leaving any breathing room, more interested in efficiency and utilizing a rare private moment than in savoring things. She imagined that she would sometimes prefer James’s way, but also sometimes the Soldier’s. She wanted James’s kissed after missions and in the quiet periods when they could take their time and enjoy things. But this was a kiss she wanted before missions, after sparring, and when he needed to stop her dancing. It was forceful, bringing her immediately into this moment without room for hesitation or doubt. They were the same and wanted the same things, that was what this kiss told her.

He had her ass up on the counter now, his hands on her hips, her thighs, her ass as he ground his hardness against her core. She found herself whimpering into the kiss and yanking on his hair as the kiss turned absolutely filthy with his tongue fucking into her mouth, his teeth biting her lower lip hard enough to break skin, his own lips closing around the tip of her tongue and sucking. “It was you,” he growled into her mouth. “It was only ever you.” He ground against her harder and his metal hand came up to squeeze and stroke at her breast, pinching her nipple through her shirt and sportsbra and twisting so she cried out. Her core seized as her brain leapt forward, imagining the amount of force he could exert with that hand if he wanted to, recognizing that he was holding back and hurting her exactly enough to please her. “You still like the metal hand,” the Soldier observed between kisses, voice so low and sinful. “Do you know what that is like? To be wanted for something that everyone else fears about you?”

“I do. You know I do.” Another cry bubbled up from her as he twisted again. Then, he slid his fingers down her front to the button of her jeans.

“Are you going to let me compromise you, Widow? Will you come on these fingers and beg me for more?”

“_Da. Pozhaluysta_.”

With a flick of his thumb, her button was undone and his metal hand was inside her panties, sliding down between her legs. The metal was cool and made her muscles twitch in shock, but he did not slow, not until he had one finger buried deep inside of her. He was drowning her in kisses once again, stealing her breath even as he lost track of his, gasping for air in the brief moments their lips weren’t locked together. Her nerves were singing as he drove his finger inside of her over and over and she could tell that she was already compromised, that it would take only a matter of moments for him to make her come. “Who owns you, Widow?” he growled, adding his thumb on her clit to make her gasp.

“No one. Not anymore.”

He slowed his ministrations, giving her time and air to lay hungry kisses along his jaw and neck. “Who owns Bucky? James? Whoever he is.”

“He doesn’t know who he is,” she answered frankly. “I call him James. And Steve and I both own him. That’s what he wanted.”

He curled his finger inside her just so and slipped a second in beside it, causing her eyes to roll back and her lips to part. “Good,” he said softly. “I’m glad.”

“You are?”

He nodded and scented her neck and hair, his breath leaving a trail up to the corner of her jaw, where he laid a slow kiss. “I am glad that you care for him and take care of him. Steve too. He knows Steve.” He curled his fingers and slowly twisted them, stopping when his fingertips found her G-spot. She had to fight to hold in the cry that nearly escaped her. When his fingers stilled there, pleasure began to build in her chest and core, desperate for release. She brought one hand up to grip his left shoulder as hard as she could and he met her gaze then. “You are far stronger now than you were then, Natalia, but I think too reckless. I think you do not see your own value.”

An involuntary shudder began at her core and rippled through her whole body. “I don’t remember you being this insightful,” she said.

“I was not,” he admitted. “They did not give my mind a long enough leash for that. Now I do plenty of thinking, though.” He twisted his fingers all the way around, stopping on her G-spot again as she moaned. “James isn’t strong enough and Steve doesn’t understand. But I could own you.”

“_Liubimyj_…” she whimpered.

The name made him hesitate, revealing that he knew it and everything it meant. After a moment, he whispered in her ear, “You are worth it, _malen’kiy pauk_. And if you can’t reassure yourself, I can give you what you need. It can be just between us, no judgment from Captain America. You know how I hate this game. I will never be owned again. But if you’re not there yet, Natalia, I will help you.”

She knew what he was offering her, knew to what degree he meant it, knew how Steve and James would react if they found out. They wouldn’t understand. She had to be strong for them, had to be…

…marble.

A shudder ran through her, but for a completely different reason than a minute prior. The Soldier immediately moved both hands to rest lightly on her hips and stepped back out of her personal space. He wore that unfeeling, assessing look as he stared her in the eye. “Is that a ‘no?’”

She gritted her teeth against the pain and confusion, then whispered the words she couldn’t admit to anyone else. Only he would understand, the Soldier, who had been made to do all manner of unspeakable things, who had been a weapon, not a person, and could not let go of that piece of him because of how much strength he had built from surviving that. Only he would understand. “I’m still letting the Red Room own me. I burned them twenty years ago and I still hear their voices in my head.”

The Soldier’s eyes flashed like blades and his hands tightened on her. After a very deliberate moment of hesitation, he leaned in once more and said firmly, “They don’t own you anymore. _I do._ You’re _mine._ Their words don’t matter anymore because I say they don’t. They’re dead and rotten in their unmarked graves and _they don’t own you._ I do. Do you know what that means, _malen’kiy pauk_?”

As his words curled around her in layers, like a blanket warming her and shielding her, she found her breath coming just a bit easier. “Tell me,” she said.

The Soldier slowly slid his bionic hand across her and down her panties once more. A tiny whimper escaped her as he slid both fingers deep inside her. His eyes were molten with emotion, lust for her, fury for the Red Room, focus on the words he chose to utter. “It means that your life is more important than the mission. It means that any man who lays a hand on you besides me, James, and Steve, will die screaming by your hand or mine. And it makes me want to kill someone watching you spar with other men, so if you do that, I make no promises regarding the results.” He curled his fingers in a come-hither motion and a moan slipped from her lips. “You are intelligent, powerful, beautiful, and fierce and the next time you think otherwise, I want you to remember that there is no one else in the world I would do _this_ for,” he said, pressing down on her clit with his thumb while he pressed up on her G-spot with his fingertips. An orgasm built inside her like a rising wave and she dug her fingernails into his right shoulder and the back of his neck hard enough that she felt warm blood pool under her nails as her body tightened. The Soldier watched her face with eyes black with lust. He kissed her cheek and whispered against her skin, “I barely know myself, _malen’kiy pauk_, but I know _you_ and I love you for who you are and I would not have fallen for you if you were anything less than what you were and still are. You are the strongest woman in the world and until you believe it as firmly as I do, _I own you._ Now, come for me.”

She did, screaming and gasping and clutching at him to hold on as she rode out the most powerful orgasm in her memory. When it was over, her muscles turned to water and she let him scoop her into his arms and carry her to her bed. He peeled her jeans off of her and pulled the covers over her, encasing her in warmth and comfort. She looked up at him in confusion which only worsened when he bent to kiss her forehead. “_Liubimyj,_” she said weakly. “What are you doing?”

“I have plans to draw up and I suspect after what happened last night with James you did not sleep much. _Spat’_, Natalia.”

She was still frowning as he turned and made his way towards the bedroom door. Before he could disappear, she said, “I don’t remember you being this thoughtful, _Soldat_.”

He chuckled darkly and turned to face her. “I was not, but I have a few more synapses firing these days. Plus, I’m trying to take a few pointers from James.” And then, he winked and said, “Sweet dreams, doll.”

Long after he’d closed the door behind him, she laid there in shock. The darkness in his eyes had been the Soldier. The wink had been James. The accent had been the Soldier. The words had been James.

_What the fuck is going on?_

\------------------

The Soldier was surprised a few hours later when Steve Rogers Captain America appeared on Natalia’s floor unannounced carrying a large paper bag that smelled good enough to make his mouth water. He had the exterior battle plans almost settled and would then be waiting on his blueprints, which he was expecting to receive that evening. He wanted as much of the plan detailed as possible so that when Bucky took over again, he would have his work cut out for him. He knew for a fact that Bucky was just as capable as him when he was feeling mission-oriented, but he wanted to make sure that the mission happened in the first place. Steve paused at the edge of the kitchen and raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re still the Soldier, aren’t you?”

He shot him a dry look, fully aware and annoyed of how Steve felt on the subject. “I can see that you like Bucky’s personality much better and perhaps that is justified, but he does not plan as well as I do.” He gestured to the large map he’d meticulously drawn of the exterior of the Hydra base and the sheets of copious notes. “It is good that I am in charge right now.”

Steve sighed, perhaps in annoyance, perhaps in weariness. The Captain set his bag on the kitchen counter, not far from where he’d had Natalia screaming for him, and began unpacking it. A few odd emotions fluttered around in his mind. Pride, lust, affection, love, possessiveness. Usually he was better at shutting down emotions tied to memories, though he had noticed that divide being increasingly difficult to maintain since leaving Hydra. Maybe that was Bucky/James coming out.

As he was unpacking the food, causing the smells to waft into the air, Steve asked, “Where’s Nat? And does she know you’re using her laptop? The one time I tried to borrow it she about bit my hand off.”

“Her bites are typically not lethal,” the Soldier answered. “She knows…she is sleeping now.”

Steve froze and the Soldier could feel him staring at him. “She’s sleeping…right in there…while allowing you to use her precious laptop?”

“Yes.” The Soldier raised an eyebrow at Steve. Apparently, there was something interesting buried here in all of this uninterestingness.

Steve was still staring. He shook himself and made for the bedroom, pointing at the food as he walked away. “That is Chinese food. You should…eat something.”

Before Steve could disappear to commune with the Widow, the Soldier eyed his cybernetic hand with the same displeasure as when he’d awoken this morning and when, upon Steve activating it, he had realized the degree to which maintenance on it had been neglected. “My arm requires maintenance. Is there a repair station here where I can make the necessary adjustments?”

Steve’s bright blue eyes were wide as he stared at him, completely unnerved. “Maintenance?”

“Yes,” the Soldier said simply, confused again as to why everything he said seemed to be in a foreign language for all Captain America understood it. Maybe it was his accent.

“Bucky…never mentioned…”

Well, that explained it. The Soldier rolled his eyes and stood, determining that the maintenance took precedence over other tasks at this time. “Then my arm requires _extensive_ maintenance. Is there a repair station or a place where I can requisition tools?”

Steve blinked owlishly, then pointed to the elevator. “Jarvis, take…Bucky…to Tony’s lab.”

“Very good, sir,” the British voice in the ceiling said. It was apparently an AI and it made the Soldier’s skin crawl, but he had endured all manner of discomforts, each one far worse than using an elevator operated by an AI. He proceeded to the elevator and let it take him to Tony Stark’s lab, silently admiring how silently and smoothly all of the technology seemed to operate here. Hydra bases had a tendency to be clunky, poorly-renovated, rarely-updated sorts of places.

There was no one in the lab when he arrived. He could tell by the quiet and the empty feeling despite the piles of half-built technology everywhere. He moved slowly and scanned carefully until he found a bank of toolboxes which, out of habit, he searched silently using his fingerprint-less metal hand. He quickly found the tools he needed and extracted, touching nothing else. There was a chair nearby with solid metal arms and good structure that he chose, noting a vague familiarity to being in it that had nothing to do with its similarity to other chairs he’d been bolted into by Hydra. He began working quietly, opening the plates one at a time, adjusting things with the set of tiny screwdrivers he’d pilfered, and then closing each plate again.

Sometime later, the elevator door slid open and someone came onto the floor. The walk was an odd combination of lazy and confident. Arrogant, that was the word. Stark?

“Jesus!” Stark hissed as he turned the corner, his entire body jolting. The Soldier raised an eyebrow at his jumpiness. Stark took a deep breath before approaching more warily now, glaring at the Soldier. “What the hell are you doing here, Terminator? You scared the shit out of me.”

He frowned at the name ‘Terminator’ and the American profanities. Without lifting his eyes from the delicate adjustment he was making to his elbow plate, he said, “Apologies, Stark. The Captain said that I would be permitted to conduct maintenance on my arm here.”

“Holy shit…” Stark groaned, standing perfectly still and staring like he was a zoo animal that might charge. “You’re _the_ Terminator right now. The Soldier. Why are you…why does Steve not see this as a giant security issue? Jarvis, lock the elevator.”

The Soldier shrugged. “Apparently Bucky either does not know that maintenance must be done or does not remember how to do it himself. When I told Steve that the maintenance must be done, he suggested proceeding here as a best course of action. I suspect he hoped you would be here, but I found what I needed and touched nothing else.” Those last words made him think of Natalia’s teasing that he shouldn’t touch things that don’t belong to him. Well, he finally had something that belonged to him and it was her.

Stark approached hesitantly, his eyes moving to the open plates of the arm. Of course, the engineer would take over at the first opportunity. “I don’t know how good the people inside your head are at communicating, but I had some ideas for an upgrade. If you like what you’ve got I can do my playing and not install anything new yet, but I can’t help wanting to tweak things.”

A new arm? One built by Tony Stark? He knew that meant it would be so much more powerful, so much smoother, so much smarter. It would also be perhaps the most poetic possible way to spit in the eye of Hydra. But there was one massive problem. “You would be willing to upgrade my arm?”

Stark nodded. “That is what I just said. And it’s what I said to someone else you’ve got floating around in there, but they weren’t as interested as you.”

“Stark,” he said sharply, knocking Stark out of his examination of the arm and back to reality. “Do you know what I did to you?”

Stark stared at him for what felt like forever, then gave a pained smile and turned away. “Do I know that you orphaned me? Yeah, I do. I also know that people don’t develop split personality disorders for fun. They did some shit things to you, things Bucky couldn’t handle but you could. Like killing people you knew?”

“I knew him. They made sure I did before they sent me.”

Stark turned back to him then, his face twisted with grief and anger. “I’m sorry, what? You have hardly any long-term memory, but they made sure you remembered the guy you were about to kill before they sent you to kill him? And you killed him anyway?”

“They liked me to remember things they could use to hurt me,” he said quietly, focusing once more on his arm. It was easier to look at than Stark’s face, which was quite like Howard’s when he was young. “They wanted me to remember…Howard…so they could show me how much power they held over me. One order from them and I would kill someone who had once been a close friend, someone who had never shown me any ill will. I think they had to start over shortly after that…I only remember one kill after Howard and his wife and then I was waking up from cryo again.” He found the right spot with the screwdriver and very carefully turned it. If Stark was reacting, the Soldier was ignoring it. “Bucky remembers. He probably didn’t know how to tell you. Sometimes they would let him sit in the backseat while I drove, you see, just to torture him. He was there when I killed them…he watched every second of it without any way to stop me. I could feel him in the back of my head…it was like this strange voice screaming nonsense, but I had orders and I heeded them. It was never optional.”

“Fuck,” Stark hissed, turning slowly away though the Soldier wasn’t looking at him to see his distress anyway. After a beat of angry silence, Stark kicked the nearest toolbox, sending it wheeling away and crashing into a wall, tools flying everywhere and clanking as they hit the floor. “Your orders…did they…did they suffer?”

He thought that over for a moment, stomping on his emotions…_weakness_…as he remembered the expressions on their faces as he killed them. “The crash didn’t do it. I had to finish them. They were afraid, but I had no orders to make them suffer and didn’t. It was…quick. The reason I’m telling you all of this is because you should know before you touch this arm. I used it on them.”

“God damn it,” Stark groaned. “Fuck. I need a fucking drink.” He moved surprisingly quickly to a small bar set up in the corner of the lab and poured a liberal amount of amber liquid that he immediately tossed back. “Fuck,” he repeated. Then he poured another serving.

“If I don’t destroy Hydra, they will come for me and they will unmake me again, turn me back into that weapon,” the Soldier said coldly, realizing what he had to say and do here. “And the first place they’re going to send me is right back to this Tower. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that can’t happen. Everything.”

“Good,” Stark said hoarsely, turning to him, glass in hand. “You’ll have a new arm to do it with. It will serve you better, it won’t have blood on it, and Hydra won’t know how to work it.”

That very nearly brought a smile to his face. A smile? When the hell had he ever smiled? Did his muscles even know how to make that happen? “I suspect I will not be around much longer. Will you ensure that Bucky cooperates?”

“Oh, he’ll cooperate,” Stark said grimly. He glared at the arm. “That arm killed my mom. You’re not using it on anyone else, that I can promise you. I already have the scans and early drafts from placing the killswitch, which I suspect you’re aware of.” He couldn’t help shooting him an annoyed glare that Stark smirked at. “Glad to hear it’s working. I’ll start on the arm right away. Any specs or features you want?”

“Removable. More realistic sense of touch. Still no pain sensors.”

Stark nodded, producing a holographic screen out of nowhere and writing on it with his finger. “I like it. Weight?”

“This model is a pain, but I am used to it.”

“I can make it match your other arm’s weight.” A complicated equation produced itself on the screen, perhaps calculating the weight of certain components of the arm.

“Yes.”

“How about built-in weaponry?”

“Is that an option?”

Stark looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “I am _Iron Man_. Of course, it’s an option. And I know you want it, I’ve seen the footage from DC where you’re going around armed to the fucking teeth. Tell me what you want.”

He tilted his head, fully distracted from his maintenance project. When was the last time he’d been fully distracted? _Natalia._ He forced himself to focus, then answered, “I want a semi-automatic that fires .45 rounds.”

“Done. What else?”

He narrowed his eyes at his metal hand. “Bullet and knife-proof. Someone did a satisfactory job repairing my hand, I suspect it was you, but I can tell the difference.”

Stark smirked again and made a note. “You have Romanoff to thank for that. I’m going to make it heat-proof while I’m at it, protect the ammunition and the wiring. How about blasters? That would be rechargeable, no ammunition involved.”

“I’m interested.”

“You’ve got it. How about a grappling system?”

And not have to find a stairwell or risk an elevator? Hell yes. “Definitely.”

“Good. And I’m locking all of the extra features down in some way that you won’t be able to use them if something goes wrong.”

He knew exactly what that meant and he gave Stark a bitter look. “Easy. Give me access to the killswitch, but only to turn everything off. The triggers are not so quick as to stop me taking that measure.”

Stark gritted his teeth and noted that. “You got it, Terminator. You know your triggers?”

Of course, he knew. How could he forget those hated words, the ones that bent him to their every will? _Ready to comply._ “Yes.”

Stark nodded stiffly. “I have Bruce Banner researching ways to unblock your memories. Maybe we can undo some of the trigger phrases too.”

“Don’t unblock the memories,” he said sternly, his fists clenching on the arms of the chair hard enough to warp them. Stark looked at him with narrowed eyes and he continued through gritted teeth, “I don’t care what Bucky thinks he wants, he doesn’t want what’s in my head and you can tell him that.”

Stark nodded slowly. “That’s why you’re here.”

“That is why I am here,” he agreed, knowing it to be true even if it didn’t make much sense. He and Bucky were two different men sharing one body and they had different strengths and weaknesses. Bucky was far more socially adept and emotionally intelligent. He could make jokes, woo women, express his own feelings and make decisions based on them. He understood his mind and body far better than the Soldier did. The Soldier did not have those things and that was his strength. He did feel in his own way, but it was only certain feelings brought up by certain moments and they were very easy to put in locked safes inside his mind where no one could break in and see them. The Soldier had done horrible things and he remembered all of them. He did not need to forgive himself because they made him do it and he was now done doing their dirty work. It was out of his hands now and though said hands were dripping with blood, he could go on without worrying too much about it because those feelings were in their own locked safes. He could compartmentalize it all and remember but _deal with it._

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here,” Stark admitted. “You have to consent to anything we change, the arm, your brain, whatever, and you and Bucky want completely different things. I think Steve would say that if you can’t agree we can’t do anything.”

“It is actually very simple,” the Soldier said carefully. “You want to destroy Hydra, you listen to me. You want to keep Bucky locked up in this Tower forever and hope that he recovers on his own, you listen to him.”

Stark stared at him for a moment, lips pursed, then he said, “In my book, you call the shots. I want your fingerprints as a signature on these notes, though, for when Steve yells at me. Deal?”

The Soldier barked a laugh and held out his human hand. Stark somehow threw the holographic screen in his direction and he laid his hand on it. An imprint of his fingerprints drew itself on the screen below Stark’s scrawled notes. After a moment’s thought, the Soldier scrawled a note of his own on the screen. “What’s that?” Stark asked.

“A bomb,” the Soldier said simply. “I want you to put a bomb in the arm that you and only you can detonate remotely. Do not tell Steve. Do not tell Natalia. It will be between us.”

Stark stiffened. “When you say ‘bomb,’ what exactly are we talking about?”

“The kind of bomb that can destroy an underground Hydra base.” The Soldier raised an eyebrow in a challenge. “Or do you think my life is worth more than the lives they’ll send me to end?”

Stark’s jaw hardened like iron. “If I _blow you up_, you can bet that Cap and Red will rip me limb from limb.”

The Soldier brushed the screen away and closed the plates on his arm, standing. “And if you don’t, you can bet that _I _will rip _someone else _limb from limb and it will be someone far more innocent than me. Is that something you can live with, Stark?” With that, he exited the lab and didn’t look back, knowing that he’d made exactly the impression he’d meant to.


	18. Healing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay between chapters, but this one is a little longer, so I hope that makes up for it. This story is getting increasingly complicated from a character development standpoint so I hope you're still enjoying it and I'm not confusing myself too much. The therapy Bucky finally gets in this chapter is based on actual DBT concepts that do actually work for people suffering from the conditions Dr. Forester lists. It took a while to polish that scene, but I think it's finally to exactly where I want it to be. Enjoy!
> 
> Trigger Warning: I probably could/should have been using trigger warnings the whole time. Sorry. During Bucky's therapy session, he details some particularly ugly experiences. If you want to avoid this, stop reading at the paragraph that begins "The...wiping...that was hell..." and pick up again at "I'm very sorry..."

Steve listened for the Soldier to disappear into the elevator, then hurried into Natasha’s bedroom. She was, indeed, fast asleep and he loathed to wake her when he knew how little she’d been sleeping, but this situation qualified as ‘extenuating circumstances’ to him. As he entered the bedroom, he started talking to her quietly, knowing that that would end far better than him sneaking up on her. “Natasha? I brought Chinese food. I don’t know how long we’re going to be able to avoid Sam, Clint, and Bruce, but we’re clear so far.” Natasha grumbled and shifted under the covers and Steve very slowly sat on the edge of the bed near her. “He’s still the Soldier. I just talked to him. Want to tell me while you’re sleeping in here, totally vulnerable, while he draws battleplans?”

Natasha groaned. Half into the pillow, she said, “Can it, Steve. He’s not going to hurt me.”

He couldn’t help it. Her bruises had healed and disappeared, but he’d never forget the way they looked around her neck. “Nat,” he said tightly. “There’s a reason Bucky’s afraid of him. He almost killed you. If he wanted to…”

“Yes, if he wanted to,” Natasha said, cutting Steve off. She sat up, pooling the covers in her arms as if deeply regretting him waking her. “He’s not going to hurt me. He’s picking up more memories, more context. He remembers me.”

Steve blinked in surprise. “Remembers…when you were together in Russia?” Natasha nodded, her eyes dropping to her hands. It was the kind of tell that Natasha never betrayed, but she trusted Steve and she was overtired and feeling vulnerable, just like him. That tell most obviously meant _shame_. How could that be? “Nat, what happened? What did he say?”

“I pushed him.” Her eyes snapped to Steve’s then and held there, her expression clear. She’d decided to either hold her ground or lie to him. “I asked him what he remembered about me. He didn’t want to tell me anything about the past. He said he remembered enough that he felt he needed to do me the kindness of not telling me. He did tell me that he was right there with James in Budapest.”

Steve’s jaw about hit the floor. “The way he was there when you were sparring yesterday? What the hell is going on?”

Natasha shook her head. “I don’t know. There isn’t really a psychological precedent for his situation. It must happen when he’s stressed, a defense mechanism or something.”

“Or it’s triggered by something familiar,” Steve said slowly. “Sparring with you, going on missions with you…”

“Maybe.” 

“He must have said something else?”

Nat nodded. She hesitated, though, before saying, “He told me he’s in love with me.”

“Bucky said the Soldier can’t feel emotion,” Steve said slowly, shocked. If the Soldier could feel…was that a good thing? Or did it just further complicate things? “Is it possible he’s lying?”

Natasha shook her head immediately. “He’s capable of lying, but he’s not trained to lie to me and…I don’t think he would.”

Steve felt like he was standing on a bed of nails, like the tiniest misstep would send him tumbling downward into excruciating pain. That sometimes happened during serious conversations with Natasha, but in the past it was because he was pushing her about her decisions on missions, not about her increasingly complicated love life. “I’m not trying to be an ass, I’m trying to understand. You’re very _sure_ and you don’t trust very easily, especially when it’s people who put bullets in you.”

Natasha smiled fondly. “That’s why I trust him, Steve. As far as we know, he killed everyone Hydra sent him after…except me. I was on his list twice, he shot me twice, and neither wound was fatal. If he’d wanted me dead, I would have been. When I pushed him about Odessa, his reaction was to examine the scar and when he saw it, I watched him _fight_ for control over his own emotions and he said that it should have healed. He was upset that he’d caused permanent damage…it was like he’d planned for me to heal from that wound.”

That tone in her voice, the warmth in her eyes, he knew these things intimately. If he was right, what the hell was he supposed to do? “Nat…are you in love with him? The Soldier?”

She was perfectly still, her face placid. After a moment, she reached out and laid her hand on his. Eyes fixed on him, she said coolly, “Steve, the Soldier is as much a part of the man we both love as Bucky is. I don’t know how they fit together and things still seem to be…shifting inside his head. But the Soldier isn’t going to go away any more than Natalia Alianova Romanova will. We were together when he had no name and Natalia was the only name I had. We’re cut from the same bloodstained cloth.” Nausea seeped into Steve’s gut and he realized that the Nat he was talking to right then was the Nat he’d talked to after Budapest, just less raw around the edges. He’d never really thought about it that way before, but Natasha was a very fragmented, compartmentalized person. She was capable of being so many different people when she wanted to that until very recently, he couldn’t have really said he knew her true self. But that was her at her base layer: fractured. Nat tipped her head just slightly to the left, refocusing his eyes on her face so he would see her lack of reaction as she said, “I’m compromised, Steve. I kissed the Soldier.”

“You kissed…” Steve’s world spun and he tightened his hand on hers in an attempt to hold on. “Nat…when Bucky finds out…”

“Tell him,” she said quietly. Her face was still devoid of emotion and a part of Steve very nearly believed the act that she didn’t care if it hurt him or Bucky. He knew better, though, and stopped himself at the edge of that slippery slope. “He should know. Tell him that I kissed him and that he kissed me back.”

For a long time, Steve just stared at her in confusion, feeling so sick and hurt and raw. But, it seemed, she had nothing else to say and he couldn’t stand sitting in the silence with her anymore, nor did he know how to respond to that. So, he left the bedroom, walked past the Soldier’s battleplans and the forgotten Chinese food, and made for the elevator. “Jarvis? Where’s Bucky?”

“Sergeant Barnes is on his floor, sir.”

That was unexpected, but hopefully a good sign. “Okay. Take me there.”

When Steve arrived on Bucky’s floor, he immediately spotted him sitting on the living room floor where he seemed to spend a lot of time. His best friend was staring up at the print of the Brooklyn Bridge Steve had hung and his eyes were red-rimmed. Steve’s heart broke and he hurried forward. “Buck? That you?”

“I was out for _ten hours,_” Bucky said, his voice raw. The thought of him crying again made Steve feel like he was bleeding inside. “What the hell did I do? I don’t remember any of it, I just walked in here, started seeing all of the pictures, and was me again. Christ….”

Steve sat next to him, close enough that their shoulders just barely bumped, and looked up at the Bridge. “Mostly you plotted your takedown of Hydra. You left us with a set of very detailed battleplans. And you did maintenance on the arm, which I didn’t even realize was a thing. I guess I should have thought of that.”

Bucky snorted. “_I_ should have thought of that. I noticed the arm getting slower and clunkier, but I didn’t understand why because I didn’t remember the maintenance procedures very well. I remember the one they did in D.C., but I figured they only had to because of the taser disk Natalia put on me. What else?”

Steve winced. “You kissed Natasha.”

Bucky’s eyes went saucer-like and he looked sharply to Steve. “I _what_? The Soldier doesn’t have emotions, why would he kiss her? He didn’t hurt her, did he?”

“Oh, no. Definitely not.” Steve looked away, staring a hole in the wall opposite them. “Apparently the Soldier does have a few select emotions, mostly about Nat. She says he’s in love with her.”

He could feel Bucky still staring at him in disbelief. “Is she sure about that? I find that really fucking hard to believe.”

Steve snorted. “So do I, but Natasha knows how to read people better than anyone, including psychopaths, which he apparently isn’t.”

“And she…_let_ him kiss her.”

Steve sighed wearily. “From the way she told it, she kissed _him_ and he kissed _back_. I’m sorry, Buck, I know it’s…”

“Steve, no,” Bucky said, cutting him off. Steve looked to him and, to his amazement, found Bucky’s eyes wet and his shoulders dropped in relief. Steve wasn’t very good at reading people, not at all like Natasha, but he knew Bucky’s face better than he knew his own and he knew what Bucky looked like when he got good news. “That’s good. I thought if they remembered each other, he’d hurt her or she’d hate him. I didn’t think it was possible that he loved her or that she could care for him knowing what he was.”

Steve instantly softened and put an arm around Bucky’s shoulders. “Well, you can rest assured. Nat insists that he loves her and I guess he even said so. And yeah, the phrase she used was that she was ‘compromised.’”

Bucky chuckled once. “That’s good. That means she has feelings for him. I’m glad.”

“I was afraid you would feel betrayed. That’s how I felt on your behalf, that and confused.”

Bucky shrugged and looked down at his hands, man and metal. “Maybe I should feel that way. I don’t know. As much as I hate it, though, I’m stuck with him right now. And if she can love _him_…it’s like having someone love you despite the worst part of you. Well, he’s the worst part of me.”

Steve’s very next thought was that blank look on Natasha’s face and that coldness in her voice. He squeezed Bucky’s shoulders, then got to his feet, reaching for Bucky’s hand. Bucky frowned in confusion, but let Steve help him to his feet. “Steve? What the hell are we doing?”

“We’re going back to Nat,” Steve said, striding quickly towards the elevator, which Jarvis was already opening. Bucky followed him into the elevator and, as they began to descend, Steve replayed that look on Natasha’s face over and over, laying it beside memories he called up of after Budapest, after the first time he stopped her dancing, and after one particular SHIELD mission when she had been the only member of her team to come back alive, two days late for extraction and full of knife wounds.

“Steve, tell me what’s going on.”

Steve scrubbed his face with his hands. “I fucked up…I keep fucking up with her. I don’t understand her and I keep tripping over myself with it. Fuck.”

“Steve,” Bucky hissed. “What the fuck happened?”

“She said that the Soldier isn’t going anywhere any more than Natalia Alianova Romanova is,” Steve said. He had to fix this, how could he fix this…. “She said they’re cut from the same bloodstained cloth. That’s what she said right before she told me she was compromised.”

“We…sort of…knew that, though, right?”

Steve shook his head. “You’re missing the point. The way she acted after Budapest? I can only think of three times I’ve seen her do that, none of them good, and today makes four. She does it when she can’t stand to think too hard about everything, when it’s swallowing her up and she feels like she has to pretend not to feel. That phrase she says…”

“_I am marble_.”

Steve looked to Bucky and the pained look in his expression that made an odd accompaniment to the angry growl that the words had been uttered with. “Stop the elevator,” Bucky gasped, bending over double. The elevator came to a quiet stop and Steve hurried to Bucky, grabbing him by the shoulders. “He’s trying to get out again,” Bucky groaned. “He’s screaming in my head…fuck.”

Steve wrapped his arms around Bucky and held on tight. “Tell me what to do. I want to help.”

“I don’t know…ah, fuck! You bastard!” Bucky groaned into Steve’s shoulder, then, a little weaker, said, “He fought me yesterday in the gym, but it wasn’t this bad. No…fuck! Maybe it’s because I just came back and he still has a foothold in my head. Jesus Christ….”

Steve’s fists were clenching and unclenching, every one of his muscles twitching with wanting to be useful, wanting to punch the Soldier in the face for doing this to his best friend, but there was nothing physical that Steve could do. “Is he saying anything? Or just being an ass?”

“Both,” Bucky hissed. “Fuck! Mostly, he’s swearing at me in Russian, calling me weak and useless. He’s not far off-base there. He thinks it’s his job to help her, that he’s the only one who can.”

Steve blinked in surprise at that, thinking back over Nat’s words. “Maybe he’s right.” Bucky looked to him in horror and Steve released him, gesturing at himself. “Buck, I’m completely helpless here. There are some things I’m built for, but none of this psychological shit is in my wheelhouse. I _know_ that I don’t understand her well enough to help her right now. I love her, I want to help her, but I don’t know how. If you do, please do it. But I think the reason she and the Soldier hit it off today and the reason the two of you got together in the Red Room was how alike you are. Nat holds herself to a high standard with us, you know that, and that has her guard up. She’s not going to act that way in front of her ex-lover who was trained by the same assholes as her to kill the same sorts of people. She knows that he’ll never look sideways at her because they’re _cut from the same bloodstained cloth_.”

Bucky stared at him for a moment, then grimaced and nearly fell over, shouting to himself as he stumbled. “Fine! Fuck you, you piece of shit. Fine!” He looked to Steve then, half-slumped against the elevator wall, and, through gritted teeth, said, “Apparently being on my floor helps bring me back. Make him go there when he’s done and please for the love of fucking God, Rogers, do not let him hurt anyone.”

“I won’t, I swear.”

An instant later, Bucky stiffened, grimacing as if in severe discomfort, and the gears whirred under the shifting plates of his arm. He stilled again and took a deep breath, then looked back to Steve with a sardonic expression. “We are in hurry, yes?” he asked in that Russian accent, hardened by frustration. “_Move the fucking elevator_.”

\----------------------

Natasha had found her jeans on her bedroom floor and pulled them on, replacing the weapons she’d removed to sleep. She felt hollow and raw, like someone had reached inside her chest with a spoon and carved everything out. James had been so broken last night. He’d scared the daylights out of her and Steve. In her opinion, the Soldier’s appearance this morning and insistence on sticking around seemed to prove their theory that the purpose of the Soldier’s existence was to protect James from having to deal with things he couldn’t handle. Maybe recovering from almost committing suicide fell under the Soldier’s list of responsibilities. And Steve…she loved Steve, loved him so much it hurt. In fact, it hurt all the time lately. Since Natasha first met Steve, she’d felt unworthy standing next to him, not that she’d ever let anyone see it, including him. What was it James had said? _It’s hard to feel good enough when you’re standing next to Captain America_. And now, Steve had given her everything and she kept disappointing him, proving to herself and to everyone watching that she was right, she wasn’t worth it.

The Soldier understood her. He knew her and knew what she needed. James came close, but he hated and feared the Soldier and the things he stood for. He had a veil separating himself from the Soldier and there was no veil between Natasha and Natalia or any of the other women, murderesses all, that she’d been. There were things she didn’t remember, that was true, but she had a hell of a lot more of her memory intact than James or the Soldier. She knew exactly who she was and what she’d done and why.

Well, there was one thing that she was always good for and that was her work.

She selected a box of Chinese food. To the touch, the box was cool, but twisting the food around with chopsticks levelled out the internal temperature to something edible. She took an experimental bite, then decided that it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t worth the effort either. She abandoned the food and went to her laptop, which the Soldier had left open, apparently to wait for electronic delivery of his blueprints. She minimized his browsers, then began opening her own, checking her encryption as she went to be sure she knew what parts of her web the Soldier had touched. It appeared that he hadn’t bothered with exploring, at least not yet, so that was a good thing. She doubled up on the security on those files and carefully hid them away where he wouldn’t look, proceeding to check on Ivan Gogolesh’s ring, the group she’d outed yesterday.

The headline was easy to find.

_Thirteen Women Found Dead in Warehouse in Kiev._

She slammed the laptop shut and bent her head, trying to regulate her breathing, her impending tears, her _rage._ Her evidence had been received, but by the enemy, someone rigging the system and benefitting from the trafficking of women. The women could have been moved, but her opponent hadn’t done that. He had left _this_ as a message for his anonymous tipper. 

How the hell was she going to explain to the guys that she needed to leave the Tower to kill a senior US State Department official?

The elevator doors whizzed open and Natasha grimaced at the thought of whoever was getting off. Footsteps, two sets, stopped dead and Steve said, “Nat?” 

More footsteps, but it wasn’t Steve’s hands very carefully descending on her shoulders and ghosting over her upper back. James. “Can we do this later?” she asked quietly.

“What is wrong with now?”

She couldn’t help it. She looked sharply over her shoulder at him, at the Soldier, who was frowning at her as he rubbed her shoulders. He’d started to dig his thumbs in and was finding every place she didn’t realize she was tense. She looked to Steve then, shocked that the Soldier was still present and that Steve was letting _him _comfort her when he was standing right there. Steve looked pained, but leaned against the wall and crossed his arms, just watching them worriedly. The Soldier lifted his left hand from her shoulder and tapped twice lightly on the lid of her laptop, then returned to his task. “What happened?”

Her eyes fell shut, seeing again that headline, imagining those dead girls. Thirteen of them. “I hacked a trafficking ring yesterday and turned the information over to someone in the State Department. There were American girls being held, so I thought it would be a slam dunk. I was wrong.”

“They bought him,” the Soldier finished.

Natasha nodded, tensing again thinking of those poor women. “He didn’t do nothing, though. He had the girls killed and left in a warehouse in Kiev as a message to the anonymous tipper. Don’t mess with us.”

The Soldier pressed a slow kiss to her hair and in that low, dangerous voice said, “When do we leave?”

Natasha, surprised again, looked to Steve. His jaw looked like it could smash marble and his fists were white-knuckled. “You’re not assassins anymore,” he said, the words clipped and careful.

“I’m not suggesting an assassination,” the Soldier said coldly. “I’m suggesting monster-hunting.”

“Same thing.”

“Would you call what I did at those Hydra bases assassinations? Or what she did in Budapest?”

Steve shut his eyes tight, a retort on his tongue, but Natasha cut in. “Steve. I failed those girls. In a matter of days, there will be a new batch and I can’t fail them too. He needs to be taken out.”

“So, do it the right way. Expose him. I know you can.”

All she’d gotten from Steve lately was emotional burden and judgment. She loved him and respected him and desperately craved the same from him, but it was becoming more and more clear that that wasn’t going to happen. She let her body relax, her soul washing out of her, and in that cold voice that never failed to make him look sideways at her, she said, “This is what I do, Steve. We all have our uses. This is mine.”

Instead of flinching, Steve’s eyes went wide with horror and worry. “Nat….” The Soldier must have shot him a look, though, because Steve remained stock-still and quieted.

The Soldier brushed her hair back over her shoulder and bent to whisper in her ear, “They don’t own you anymore, _malen’kiy pauk_. Remember?” His breath was warm and soothing on her skin and she shut her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see Steve’s tortured face. She nodded and the Soldier went on. “I respect your skills and your feelings about this. We can do it your way, but it must be _your_ way, not theirs. Your life and your soul are worth more than this.”

“This isn’t about my soul, _Soldat._ I have red in my ledger, that’s all.”

The Soldier laughed, a strange humorless sound. “If I kept a ledger, you know that mine would be bloodier.” He sobered, then, though, and whispered to her, “The things you did for them weren’t you any more than the things I did for them were me. Some of the conditioning was even the same, you know this. They were making weapons out of people and we don’t have to play by their rules anymore.” His right hand slid down her side to her hip, warmth and sparks chasing it, making her unconsciously lean back into him. “I can love you now. Bucky, James, whoever…he can think and feel and act now. And you, my Natalia, you can tell the voices in your head to fuck off and believe me when I tell you you’re worth more than a weapon. Look at Steve.” She opened her eyes to find Steve silently crying watching them, one hand covering the lower part of his face as if to stop a sob. Her heart broke seeing him like that…it wasn’t so different from the way he’d looked after Budapest when she’d hurt him so badly by hurting herself. “Tell me, Natalia, is that how Captain America looks at a weapon? Or a monster with red in their ledger? I think not. He understands our broken minds about as well as he speaks Russian, but he loves you and he loves Bucky and you know he doesn’t walk away from anything, least of all people he loves. _Da_? Do you know why Bucky broke conditioning in D.C.?” Natasha shook her head. “Because he saw not Captain America, but Steve Rogers, the idiot who parachuted alone into a Hydra base to save his ass, trying to save his ass again. Steve knew what you were, Natalia, long before he fell in love with you, and he’s not going to stop loving you for who you are now.” He kissed her temple, then said, “Let him take care of you, _malen’kiy pauk_. I’ll send James back later.”

She reached for and grasped his metal hand, squeezing hard. He squeezed back, just tight enough. He wasn’t afraid of the arm. He knew exactly what he could do with it and it was a part of him. “Thank you, _liubimyj_.”

One more kiss to her temple, then he slipped away. She watched him walk towards the elevator, that lethal grace in his step that wasn’t there with James. When he’d gone, the elevator whizzing away, she looked to Steve. He wiped his tears away, then moved towards her. “I’m sorry, Steve,” she said.

Steve immediately shook his head, his face distorting briefly in pain. “No, Nat. Please don’t. _I’m_ sorry. I’ve been an ass to you and it wasn’t fair. I’m shit at this. I know I love you, though, and whatever misunderstandings we’ve had, that hasn’t faded for an instant, I swear.” Steve sat on the stool beside her and spun to face her, his knees close enough to her thigh that she could feel electricity buzzing between them. Steve rested his elbows on the counter and the back of his stool, running his hands through his short blond hair as he sighed. He clasped the hands in front of him then and looked to her earnestly, blue eyes molten with emotion. “Nat, I love you _exactly_ the way you are. I’m not good with women, just ask Bucky, and psychology was barely even heard of in the 1940’s, at least among poor boys from Brooklyn. I am totally out of my depth with you and I’m sorry that I keep falling short and hurting both of us.”

Natasha blinked in surprise and felt her brow furrow in her confusion and concern. “Steve…how could you possibly fall short?”

Steve snorted and offered one hand to her. She took it and let him study and massage her fingers. “Have I told you before how much I hate Captain America?”

“I know you’re not Captain America, Steve,” she said softly. “I told the Soldier it was _you_ who earned my loyalty. I don’t see you as Captain America any more than Bucky did.”

He gave her a sharp look. “But you have me on a pedestal anyway, I know you do.”

Natasha shrugged. “I suppose. You’re an incredibly _good_ person, Steve. Kind, loyal, thoughtful, generous…all things I’m not.”

Steve’s features twisted in disbelief. “Nat! If that’s your definition of ‘good,’ then you’re the best person I know! You are all of those things. You constantly work to make things less painful for everyone else, your loyalty to your friends is ironclad, you know what I’m thinking almost before I do, and on every mission you give everything you have to get the job done and save innocent lives.” Steve softened and kissed her knuckles, still staring up at her so earnestly, his eyes screaming the words at her _please believe me, I mean every word, please believe me._ “Natasha, you are an amazing woman and I am honored to stand by your side in whatever capacity you’ll have me. We’ve been partners since you jumped off my shield in New York, and I’ll never walk away from that. If this isn’t going to work, if the Captain America bullshit is making things harder, it’ll break my fucking heart, but I’ll do what’s best for you. I’m your partner first, Natasha, and as your partner, I’m with you to the end of the line.”

Her eyes were burning and she realized that there were tears in them. Though her instinct was to turn away and hide her face until the tears abated, she couldn’t look away from Steve in that moment. He did have that stupid Captain America schtick and he had rescued her like some damsel in distress and those facts had caused her to look at him differently, to stop seeing him as her partner, the partner she’d had, as he said, since New York. They’d worked together, hung out together, trusted each other, been each other’s main tether to real life. Her facial muscles felt like stone, _not marble_, as she tried to hold back more tears. She squeezed his hand in his, then, and repeated, “To the end of the line?”

“Always,” Steve said fervently. “I love you, Natasha. I trust you and I respect you and I’m not going anywhere. If you run off, I’ll chase you halfway across the world and bring you back _again_ to keep you safe.” She wasn’t breathing, much less capable of a response, so, after a moment’s pause, Steve continued. “I think what’s been happening is that before the last few weeks, I’d never seen you vulnerable before. Now that I’ve seen you hurt and now that I know how much pain you cause yourself by not asking for help, I need to heal you, Nat. I can’t see you like this, it makes me sick. Every part of me hurts. What happened in Budapest?” Steve broke off, his face screwing up in pain just at the thought. Then, his tear-filled eyes were on her again. “Nat, that night in Budapest was every bit as painful as watching Bucky fall from that train. And I know you had to do it that way, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less. You deserve so much better and I want to give you that. I know I’m going to fall short in some ways, but please, darling, please…just talk to me or to Buck. Or the Soldier if that’s easier. I don’t care which of us, but you need to trust us. We love you and whatever you need, any one of us will do it. We’re not going anywhere. We just can’t stand to see you in pain.”

Natasha took in a shaky breath, every muscle in her body taut and quivering with the effort of holding herself together. Finally, she said, “Pain is just a way to measure how long it will take me to heal. The problem is feeling nothing. I’ve spent most of my life feeling either pain or nothing…not joy or love or contentment. I must have had those things with James…the Soldier…all those years ago, but I have so few memories of that time. They’re just these tiny shards of memories, just moments. I was trained that good feelings were weaknesses. They were signs that I was getting sloppy and would make a very painful mistake.” She gave Steve a bitter smile and said, “Until the Avengers, all the good feelings I’d ever had were with James and the fact that we don’t know how that ended is evidence of how horribly it ended. I never had a reason to break down that training.”

Steve leaned in close, eyes boring into hers as he whispered, breath on her lips, “Let me give you a reason.” She shut her eyes and felt his lips on hers’, soft and warm and lingering, just enough pressure to make her long for more before he pulled back. “Nat, it’s the good feelings that make us stronger, not weaker. I fight for the people I love and to protect innocents, two things that your handlers would have told you were weaknesses. But good things, like love and loyalty, always supersede orders and that’s why they trained you the way they did. They wanted a weapon, not a woman. I’m never going to hurt you, Nat, and I’m never going to let you get hurt because of me. This isn’t a weakness. Let me love you.”

The tears were spilling over her cheeks now. _Not weakness._ She opened her eyes so she could see into his, such a bright blue, as she said, “I love you, Steve.”

Steve’s expression softened and the tension left his shoulders. He squeezed her hand gently and said, “I love you, Nat.”

Natasha reached out and, with one hand on his shoulder and the other in his hand, shifted from her stool onto his lap, where he immediately wrapped his arms around her and began kissing her, soft and slow and sweet, like she was precious to him. His hands moving so slowly and lightly over her skin and through her hair told the same story, as surprising as it was to her. And his soft touches weren’t hesitance or fear or distraction, they were _value_. He _valued_ her, treasured her even, if his behavior was anything to go by. He wasn’t worried about her using this against him or about getting hurt or punished or just losing everything again. He just loved her and that was enough for him.

She ran her fingers through his hair, much shorter than James’s, but very soft, and trapped him there so she could deepen the kiss. They stayed like that for what felt like forever and mere moments and she wanted it to be forever. She couldn’t remember ever feeling anything this good, anything this pure and sweet. She still couldn’t quite believe that it was real. These things didn’t exist for her. She wasn’t sure they existed at all, but if they did, they certainly weren’t meant for _her_.

Half an eternity later, Steve broke the kiss, breathing heavily and, lips brushing against hers, whispered, “Nat, will you go steady with me?”

Her heart lurched even as a half-smile quirked up her lips. “Well, we’re already sleeping together, Rogers.”

Steve chuckled and she could almost feel his blush warming the air between them. He nuzzled her nose and the gesture was so sweet and innocent that it nearly brought tears to her eyes. “I am…very aware of that and very happy about it. I want to date you, though. You mean a lot to me, Nat…you deserve to be courted. Please?”

She pulled back enough to look him in the eye and could instantly see that, as usual, he meant every word. Her heart melted inside her chest and her eyes pricked with unshed tears again. She forced a smile to hide how vulnerable she felt and said, “What exactly does ‘courting’ look like, Rogers? We can’t exactly go out in public with everything going on.”

Steve smirked, like he knew he had her on the hook. He did, absolutely. “If you say ‘yes,’ you’ll find out. Come on, Nat. Please?”

“Okay, yes. Enough with the puppy-dog eyes, now!”

“Ha! I knew you couldn’t resist,” Steve said, grinning from ear to ear.

A thought occurred to her and she raised an eyebrow at him. “So, are you going to court James too?”

“When he’s ready,” Steve said without an ounce of hesitation. “He’s got a lot he’s dealing with right now, including the fact that we’re apparently bi and in love with each other. I don’t want to push him.”

Natasha snorted at that and shook her head in disbelief. “You guys are idiots. You really weren’t romantic before?”

“Never.” Steve looked down at his hand, which was still enveloping hers. “I wanted to be, but he’d been my best friend since we were kids and I was terrified of risking that. Besides, that was a different world. Being anything other than straight could land you in prison or an insane asylum if the wrong people found out. I didn’t have much going for me other than him and I’ve always been a headstrong idiot, so I would have done it anyway, but I didn’t want him to take that risk for me.”

Sadness seeped right down into her bones and she stroked his cheek soothingly. “You should tell him that. I think it would mean a lot to him to know how much you cared even then.”

Steve nodded thoughtfully. “I will.” He met her gaze again then, and all of his attention was on her. “Are you okay?”

“I’m better,” she said. She thought back over everything then, though, and asked, “You brought the Soldier to talk to me. You could have talked to me yourself or tried to break James out.”

Steve smiled wryly. “Bucky _was_ out. When I got worried about you and told him why, the Soldier started fighting him. Maybe we could have forced him back or I could have come alone, but I remembered what you said to me about the Soldier earlier today, about being cut from the same cloth.” Natasha looked down at their hands then, anywhere but at those blue eyes. Steve tipped her face back up with one finger under her chin and locked gazes with her. “I’m not perfect, Nat. Far from it. I messed up and I don’t know shit about psychology or women. I’ve read your files, but I can’t begin to understand how any of that makes you feel. He does understand, though, and he loves you as much as I do and as much as Bucky does. I hunted you down and brought you in because I want you to be safe and happy and if you’re hurting, I’m going to do whatever I can to help you, even if it’s sending the Winter Soldier to take care of you when I can’t.”

She shut her eyes tight to hide the overwhelming shame and confusion she felt at that. “Steve, I’m so sorry. This is all so…strange. I know this must be hurting you and James…god…”

“He’s fine with it,” Steve interjected. Natasha looked to him with wide eyes and Steve bit his lower lip. “He’s happy about it, actually. He sees the Soldier as the worst part of him and if you can love the worst part of him, well….”

“I’m just as hard to love as he is, Steve,” she warned sadly.

Steve just smirked at that, though, and her heart warmed again. “Well, I’ve never backed down from a fight before, ma’am, and I’m not going to when I’m fighting to keep you.” She shook her head and realized belatedly that she was smiling. Her facial expressions never got away from her like that. “I mean it, Nat,” Steve said. “You mean too much to me. I want to make this work.”

His eyes were just as earnest as ever, that beautiful, clear, sky-blue, and she loved him so much in that moment for his kindness and understanding and loyalty and for the fact that he was gifting all of that to _her_. “I want that too,” she whispered.

“Good.” Steve smiled warmly, then he kissed her again and they got lost in each other.

James returned to the floor at precisely five o’clock, expression so tightly locked down that Natasha almost mistook him for the Soldier. He held a rumpled-up piece of paper so tightly in his right hand that there were bits that were torn. He paused at the edge of the kitchen, studying them both warily where they were still curled up together on Steve’s stool, then raised up the bit of paper and, sighing, said, “The jackass left me instructions. Luckily, I know just enough Cyrillic to read them.”

Under other circumstances, it might have been funny. As it was, Natasha’s heart clenched and she climbed carefully off of Steve to go to James. She took the note from him, placed it on the counter, and wrapped her arms around him, laying a hundred soothing kisses along his neck, face, and mouth. When he began to thaw out, she said softly to him, “Thank you for what you did. I’m so sorry, _liubimyj_.”

James sighed and tightened his arms around her, kissing the top of her head. “I’m sorry, Natalia. I wish I could’ve helped you. He did, though?” She nodded and buried her face in the hollow of his throat, listening as he exhaled in relief. “Good. And Stevie’s taking care of you, I see.”

“Not just that,” Steve said smugly. “I’m going steady with her.”

Natasha looked up in time to see James’s jaw drop in indignation. “What the hell, Rogers? I’ve been waiting eighty years to go steady with you!”

Between James’s reaction and then the dumbstruck look on Steve’s face, Natasha burst out laughing, then released James and shoved him towards Steve. As she watched, continuing to laugh, James grabbed Steve by the neck of his t-shirt and hauled him in for a forceful kiss that left Steve panting and looking dazed. “Steven Grant Rogers, will you go steady with me?”

Steve blinked owlishly and nodded, struck dumb by the abrupt turn of events. Then James was kissing him again and very nearly knocking him off the barstool with the force of it. Her cheeks were beginning to hurt from smiling and laughing so hard and she finally rolled her eyes and stepped forward to grab James by his left arm and haul him back. “You guys are idiots and you’re going to end up on the floor if you’re not careful. Either take a breather or take it somewhere more comfortable.”

James looked to her, eyes blue-black with love and lust, and hauled her in with the same forceful kiss he’d just dealt Steve. The breath left her lungs in a whoosh and she staggered, allowing him to keep her upright and pressed against him. As they gasped for air, he murmured against her lips, “Will you go steady with me, _malenk’iy pauk_?”

“Of course, _liubimyj_. Now can we please do this somewhere less vertical?”

\-------------------

The night before had been a nice night spent having dinner with his two favorite people, plus Clint and Sam, then retiring to watch movies tangled on the couch together. _Star Wars _was every bit as enthralling as Steve had made it out to be and kept him up late well beyond the point where Steve and Natalia fell asleep on either side of him on the couch.

Now, he was back to wanting to crawl out of his skin. Steve had managed to get the appointment with the psychologist Stark recommended set up and she agreed to come to the Tower on short notice, so Jarvis was directing him there now as he paced back and forth in the small space of the elevator.

When the elevator doors opened on a floor he’d never visited, he stepped forward into this new setting warily, eyes darting around at the rooms with their glass walls, some larger than others, with varying types and numbers of chairs and tables. Standing at the doorway of one of the small rooms was a middle-aged blonde in a green pantsuit, smiling amiably at him. He scowled and shuffled forward. “You must be Dr. Forester,” he said gruffly.

“I am,” she said, completely unruffled by his rudeness. “It’s nice to meet you. You’ll need to tell me what you prefer to be called. I’ve been given several names for you.”

He sighed, already exhausted by this. He’d agreed to this when Steve first suggested it, but he knew he was going to hate every minute of it. He’d had enough of people poking around inside his head. “That sounds about right. And I really don’t care which you use.”

“Well, since we’ll be talking about very personal matters, I’d prefer to use the name which you identify with best.”

He sighed wearily and let her see the darkness in his eyes. “In that case, Bucky, James, Barnes, Buck, _Soldat_, Asset, they’re all the same to me. Hell, Stark calls me Terminator and that works as well as any of the rest.”

Dr. Forester nodded slowly, but otherwise seemed unintimidated by that. “Then that’s something we can work on, if you wish.”

Ugh. Before he stepped into the little room, he asked, “Jarvis? Privacy mode, please.”

“Already done, sir,” Jarvis said. “The standard protocol for the inside of the rooms on this floor is privacy mode due to the confidential nature of meetings which are conducted here.”

That made him feel a hair better, anyway.

They entered the room and, as Dr. Forester shut the door, the walls solidified into opaque grey paint. They sat in their armchairs at the exact same time and the psychologist produced a notepad and pen without lifting her gaze from him. “What would you like to talk about, Sergeant?”

He was not expecting her to pick that name, but it fit surprisingly well and he frowned in confusion. “I like that name, I think. You should know, though, that I’m really only here to make Steve feel better. I’ve had more than enough of mind-altering drugs and people fucking around with my brain. I’m not interested in any of that.”

“That’s not at all what this will be,” she said placidly. “Any treatment we proceed with will be one hundred percent your choice to embark on. Every word you utter in this room will be kept strictly confidential, as will any therapeutic advice I offer you.”

He raised an eyebrow at that. “Even from Steve? Even from Stark, who’s footing your bill?”

“Absolutely. Confidentiality is actually the most important part of my job. Anything else we try to do together will be pointless if you don’t feel safe enough to be honest with me.”

He swallowed hard, unnerved and emboldened. After some thought, he said, “What did Steve say to you about me?”

Dr. Forester frowned in concern. “He’s worried about you, very worried. He feels like he doesn’t know how to help you, but that if he doesn’t do something, you’ll hurt yourself.”

He sighed and looked down at his hands, one man, one machine. “Well, I kind of deserve that. He stopped me from killing myself the other night.”

A short note written on her pad. He glanced at it, but despite his ability to read upside-down he couldn’t make it out. Her writing was too compact and boxy, probably specifically designed so her patients couldn’t read it. “Do you want to talk about that?”

“I thought that’s why you were here, to talk about that.”

She shook her head, lips pursed thoughtfully. “I’m here to talk about what you want to talk about and help you find ways to cope with what’s bothering you.”

He nodded slowly. “Okay. Right now…it’s two things. One, I apparently have an identity complex. And two, I’m freaking out about the possibility of the Soldier taking control of me.”

Dr. Forester made a longer note as she nodded. When she could look up at him again, she said, “I’d say those are really the same issue, wouldn’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the Soldier was an identity of yours and, like it or not, he’s a piece of your identity now.”

He chewed on his lower lip. When had he gotten into that habit? “Some of the Avengers have said similar things to me. I don’t want the Soldier, though. He’s dangerous. He doesn’t care about the same things I do and I can’t do anything to stop him when he’s in charge. I can’t even remember what happens.”

“Would you say that the Soldier’s existence makes you feel less in control?”

“Yes. Like I have no control, actually. That’s what he was, just a machine…designed to follow orders and damn everything else. They gave him…me…no control.”

Dr. Forester nodded. “I see. Are there things in your life now, Sergeant, that you do feel a sense of control over?”

The gut-response was _no_, but he hesitated before he voiced it. Dr. Forester smiled only just barely and he took that as encouragement. “I guess…I’m in control of when and where I sleep and that helps me know when and where the Soldier could wake up.”

“That’s very good. What about any small things?”

“I…I don’t know. Everyone wants me to remember and become _normal _and I don’t even know what that means.”

Dr. Forester actually rolled her eyes, surprising him. “I think being _normal_ is overrated, especially in your part of the world. None of the people you spend time with are strictly normal, are they, Sergeant?”

“I…no. I suppose they’re not.” Steve and Natalia of course had their struggles, but the others did too. When he’d talked to Clint about killing the Soldier, he had recognized the grim understanding in the archer’s eyes, as if he’d been forced to do horrible things too and was haunted by it. Tony hid his troubles in layers and layers of personas and sometimes left him stumbling in the wake of how quickly his mind worked, but despite the state he’d been in when Tony had been fixing his hand, he had not missed how Tony responded to Natalia’s concerns over him. He had responded like he knew PTSD intimately. Bruce had an identity complex as bad as his and plenty of fear to boot. And Sam? He seemed so well-adjusted and happy, but no one decided to become a VA counselor because they didn’t have a close-up experience involving mental health problems. Sam got it and he’d learned it somewhere. “They all have…baggage.”

“I think that’s fair to say and it’s not necessarily a bad thing.” He looked to her in surprise again and she shrugged. “It’s my job to be able to read people, Sergeant, and just stopping for coffee in the morning makes my head spin sometimes seeing so many people around me struggling, some with big difficulties, some small. Everyone has to fight a battle at some point. Some of us fight wars. You know what I mean.” He nodded stiffly. Dr. Forester pointed up at the floors above them. “They do too. They do want you to be _well_, but that’s not the same as normal.”

“I suppose.”

“So, Sergeant, what else can you control?”

“Can you…give me an example? I don’t really understand.”

Dr. Forester nodded. “Of course. I can control what time I leave to get my coffee and go to work each morning. I can control where I get my coffee. I can control what kind of coffee I order. I can control how I feel about the length of the line ahead of me and the temperament of the barista. I can control where I drink my coffee. You’d be surprised at how much control we really have over our lives.”

He had never thought about it like that. What a strange concept. He thought for a long time, turning over possible responses in his head. “I can control…whether I shower in the morning or after going to the gym. I can control whether I eat breakfast. I can control whether I eat alone or with Steve or Natalia or any of the others. I can control when I go to the gym, what I do there, and how much time I spend there. I can control where I sleep at night and with whom.” He thought some more, still frowning deeply. That was actually…quite a bit that he controlled. It was a lot more control than he’d thought he had and miles more than he’d had with Hydra.

Dr. Forester rewarded him with a small smile and an equally small nod. “Very good. Control is a struggle for more people than you would expect, Sergeant. You’re not alone. Many veterans return home and struggle to adjust to civilian life, craving the sense of order that the military gave them. They have to learn to make their own decisions again and take control themselves. Millions of people suffer from anxiety and one of the biggest contributors to anxiety is a feeling of losing control. Dialectical behavioral therapy is a treatment that I believe you would benefit from.” At the word ‘treatment’ he stiffened and she noticed, softening her voice. “DBT is not something anyone can force you to do because it is entirely within your own mind to practice it. I can teach you some tools to try out that are based in DBT.”

Gritting his teeth, he said, “I’ll bite. What is DBT?”

“DBT is one of many paths to retraining your brain to think in healthier, more positive ways. Some DBT skills are mindfulness, which is the practice of living in the moment, handling stress, regulating emotion, and improving interpersonal communication.”

“And this is related how…?”

Dr. Forester smiled crookedly. “The root of DBT is self-awareness. I think you have a bit of it already, but could deal with some more. Self-awareness is recognizing what your body is feeling and what your mind is thinking. If you’re aware of what’s going on with yourself, you can take action to improve your state. Say my morning has been hell, I’m running late, and the line at the coffee shop is long. I can react harshly to the barista, glare at the people I walk past on the street, and slam my office door when I get to work. Or, I can exercise some self-awareness. I notice that my breathing is choppy, my heartrate is high, and my jaw is clenched. I notice that my brain is producing anxiety and irritation. I don’t feel in control. I’m angry with myself for being late and at the people around me for making me later. I’m not appreciating the things around me I normally enjoy about my morning. The result, as you might imagine, is that I am in a rotten mood the rest of the day and, by extension, my work ethic and relationships suffer, as does my mental health as I become more stressed. So, being self-aware, I can take a deep breath, remind myself of the things I can control and the things that are good even if there are bad things too and move on with my life. My day goes normally, I don’t negatively impact the people around me or my career, and my mind is so much better off without that stress and negativity.”

Somewhere in that spiel, his eyes had narrowed in skepticism and now he was shaking his head slightly. “I understand the process, but I don’t see how it can help me.”

The psychologist smiled patiently. “Then we’re part of the way there. It is possible that DBT would be only minimally effective, but I don’t think that’s the case. I suspect that, after such a short time as your own man, one of those things you don’t feel like you can control is your emotions.”

He immediately thought of the number of times he’d cried on Steve and Natalia lately. He thought of the numbness he’d felt talking about and planning his own death. He thought of the anger he’d felt at the Soldier. He shut his eyes. “Yeah.”

“With practice, you can train yourself to recognize those emotions, accept them as valid and fair to be feeling, and express them in a healthy way that helps you to move forward. Would you like to tell me about an emotion you feel you can’t control?”

He swallowed hard, hesitating. Then, “Anger. At the Soldier. And at Hydra for putting him in me.”

“Are you aware that you are absolutely justified in feeling that way?”

“I’m not supposed to…” he cut himself off, stunned by what he’d been about to say. “I was going to say that I’m not supposed to feel things. That’s what Hydra trained me to think. Emotions make you sloppy in the field.”

“Emotions are a part of being human, though, aren’t they? And there is nothing wrong with them as long as we can express them in healthy ways and don’t let them rule our lives.”

He raised an eyebrow, staring down at his hands. “Well, I’ve developed a habit of yelling at the Soldier in a mirror. The other day, I punched the mirror and shattered it.”

“You could have injured yourself,” Dr. Forester said mildly, her tone surprising him into meeting her placid gaze. “You could have frightened someone you respect or care about. You could have reinforced a reflex to break things when you become overwhelmed or angry. All of these are risks associated with not expressing your anger in a healthy way. Let’s try out the self-awareness concept. Let’s say you’re in that situation again, angry with the Soldier, wanting to confront him, how can you handle it differently?”

“I don’t know. I guess…a few days ago, the Soldier woke up and Steve was able to have a conversation with him. I could ask Steve to talk to him for me. I could even…I could write down what I want to say.” He frowned in confusion, remembering the clipped isntructions in Cyrillic that detailed what time to go to Natalia and Steve and when to expect the blueprints to be delivered from the Soldier’s contact. “That’s something the Soldier did yesterday…he wrote a note to me.”

Dr. Forester smiled warmly, surprising him again. He’d just told her that his version of Hyde was writing him notes and she _smiled._ “Both excellent ideas. I think they would bring you a great deal of reassurance and relieve a lot of your stress and anger. They’re also very productive ideas. Quite efficient of you, Sergeant.”

Warmth glowed in his chest at her praise. Maybe it was a good idea. And maybe it could work.

“While we’re on the subject of DBT, I have another tool you may find useful: mindfulness, being aware of the moment. Mindfulness is extremely useful for individuals with anxiety difficulties and also with depression and dissociative disorders. It’s a way to come back to reality, so to say, when things are difficult, and can be especially effective for pulling people out of panic attacks and similar states of shock or psychosis. Is that something you think could be helpful to you?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. He’d nearly passed out hyperventilating in front of Steve on the roof and that hadn’t been the only episode.

Dr. Forester nodded. “There are a range of mindfulness tools. Even practicing the simpler ones can help immensely in the long run and for episodic events. The keys to mindfulness are the five senses. People often have difficulty trusting their eyes or one of the other senses when they’re in distress, but if you can latch on to the world around you with the others, things become a little clearer. Grounding is a technique for forcing yourself to observe facts about the world around you using all five senses. There are different strategies you can use. One is a countdown, where you focus on your breathing and count five things you can see, four things you can hear, three things you can touch, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. You can adjust the numbers and order as you see fit if one sense is particularly helpful to you. Those last three, touch, smell, and taste, are often especially helpful because our brain is not very good at manufacturing those senses out of nothing.”

Steve had kissed him to break that panic attack. That had been touch, smell, and taste. And he’d mentioned that he used to carry a flask during the war for Bucky’s panic attacks. Alcohol would be smell and taste. Touch too as the warmth of it burned his tongue and throat. “That makes…a lot of sense.”

“Mindfulness does take practice. It’s not so different from working out or sparring. Your brain needs the practice so when it really needs to perform well, it has the muscle memory in place.”

“How can I practice?”

Dr. Forester smiled warmly again. “It’s not too hard, Sergeant. It takes absolutely nothing out of your time to do it. But it does take discipline to get in the habit. When you have some space to think, even the tiniest bit, pay close attention to your sensory details and count them off in your head. Name as many as you can for each sense. Good occasions to practice are in the shower, brushing your teeth, drinking your coffee, running on a treadmill, relaxing on the couch. It’s a good habit for keeping calm and enjoying life a little more, as well as practicing for grounding.”

“Yeah. I can…I can see that.” He caught himself scratching the back of his neck and froze in surprise. That was a Steve habit. How odd.

Dr. Forester made several notes and he found he wasn’t so suspicious of them now. “Do you feel that continuing sessions with me could prove helpful to you?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

“Good.” She met his eyes again and smiled. Her face and eyes were so open and honest, so guileless. It reminded him a bit of Steve and he almost felt that he could someday trust this woman. “I’m glad to hear that. I also think that our time together could be very beneficial for you. I’m quite optimistic for your recovery.”

Recovery? From all he’d been through? After everything he’d done and had done to him? He grimaced and tears burned his eyes. “I don’t know about that, ma’am. Not after everything.”

Dr. Forester leaned forward just slightly and he found that more comforting than if she’d tried to touch him or stayed still. “Sergeant,” she said softly, “I know you’ve been to Hell and back. Not because of anything I’ve read or been told, but because I can see it in your eyes and in the way you carry yourself. It’s my job to see. Despite all that, though, you have come a very long way on your own, Sergeant, and you have the will to get better, which isn’t a small thing at all. You have a long way to go yet, but you’ll get there. You have people who care about you and want to help you, including me. All you have to do is let them.”

He bit down on his knuckles to try and stop the pain splitting his skull, to try and keep the tears from falling. He felt like a half-healed wound being ripped wide open again, stitches tearing through flesh, staples falling free, blood seeping, searing pain as the air hit the rawness within. He felt nauseous and jittery and he realized that his metal hand was whirring, clenching and unclenching in distress. He met Dr. Forester’s eyes and saw only gentle concern there.

“I think I…there are things…I’d like to talk.”

“Okay, Sergeant,” she said softly. “Tell me.”

“The…wiping…that was hell. The torture and punishments were hell. The confinement and conditioning were hell. The missions were hell. But the handlers…” he ground his teeth together and squeezed his eyes shut tight, wincing when tears leaked from his eyes. _Weakness_. “They were monsters. Some worse than others, all monsters. They made me…fuck. I…I held down women as they raped them. Listened to them scream, felt their bones break under my hands, watched their tears cut through dirt and blood on their faces. I can see their eyes. Wide…bulging…terrified and violated…panicking and pleading. I can hear them beg me to let them go or to help them. I wanted to. I couldn’t. I had…orders.” Dr. Forester was silent, but she was a warm presence in the room and she wasn’t running in fear or flinching away in disgust. “They assigned me extra kills. Civilians. People who didn’t need to die. One…” a sob wracked him as he saw that face again, clear as day, and watched it explode in a spray of red. “One was a little girl. No older than five or six. They told me to shoot her in the head. I didn’t even hesitate, just took the shot and watched through my scope as her skull exploded. I keep seeing her face. She looked _right at me_ like she knew what was going to happen and I shot her. And some of them…” his stomach lurched and he clutched at it with one hand. “Some of them…used me. They…they made me…” a shudder wracked him. “They made me blow them. Held me down on them until I choked. Some of them had their teams take turns with me ‘til I was…” the nausea struck him again, but he knew he wasn’t going to lose control of it. “They kept going until I was vomiting and then…then they’d beat me half to death for that. They beat it right out of me until the bastards could put whatever they wanted in my mouth or in my veins and I couldn’t vomit. How sick is that? To condition that out of someone?”

“Do you want to tell me about the worst thing you remember them doing to you?”

As he fought the tears, he turned over the way she’d worded that question. This woman was smart, really fucking smart, and to his surprise, he did want to tell her. “They raped me. They’d make bets on how long it would take the serum to heal the damage. They’d bait me and try to get me to break conditioning and fight them, but I couldn’t. I just took it, however they wanted me. One…” he dug his fingertips into his skull as if he could squeeze that particular nightmare right out and leave it behind forever. “There was one…he fucked me with a…with a loaded gun. It…ah, fuck…it hurt like hell and scared the living fuck out of me. And he…this fucker…it was a revolver and he told me that half the chambers had rounds, had me watch as he loaded it. And the bastard was laughing his ass off and he fucking _pulled the trigger_. Three _fucking_ times. And there was nothing I could do but take it and wish that he would pull it again and the chamber would have a live round in it and just _end me_.”

“I’m very sorry that that happened, Sergeant,” Dr. Forester said softly, still leaned forward in support, still not trying to touch him, and he was so fucking grateful. “I suspect you haven’t told anyone that before.” He shook his head, unable to speak around the tears and nausea. “I am sorry that you’re in pain now having to relive those events. Some people find traumas easier to process once they’ve told them to people, though. That doesn’t mean those memories aren’t private. I’ll remind you of my promise, Sergeant. Everything you say here is confidential. If there are things you need to tell me and don’t want to tell others, that’s fine. This is a safe place for you to do that.”

A sob wracked him again at those words. _A safe place._ “Thank you,” he whispered.

“Of course,” she said softly. “Do you want help processing these events? Or are there other things you wish to talk about?”

“You can…you can help?”

“If you wish.”

“Can you…make them go away? Without…making everything else go away?”

Dr. Forester was quiet enough that he met her eyes. She looked very sad. “They won’t go away forever, Sergeant, but no one is going to allow the destruction of your memory again either. What I can do is give you new ways to deal with them when you do think of them.”

He twined his fingers together, man and metal, gritted his teeth, and nodded. “Okay. I guess I’ll take that.”

“Okay. This is another DBT thing and I think you’ll like it. When those memories present themselves, I want you to think carefully about the emotions you feel connected to those feelings. Accept them. They are valid and you are justified in having them. Then, I want you to focus on the here and now and what you would be feeling had those memories not resurfaced. Remember that you are in control of what you say and do and _feel_. You can choose to acknowledge those negative feelings, even take a moment to contemplate them, and then set them aside in favor of more positive things connected to the here and now.”

He sighed. “You make it sound so easy.”

“If you like, we could give it a go. We wouldn’t use one of your worst memories, of course. I’d ask you to pick a much weaker but still negative memory.”

He eyed her, needing her to be right about all of this. “You think this could help?”

“I do.”

He sighed again, then rutted around in his memory to pick out a shard of something, something awful but something he could deal with reliving right now. “They…they peeled away this huge strip of skin on my thigh, left it open and oozing. I was strapped down for it, but they didn’t use any kind of anesthesia. They never used anesthesia for anything. And they left me there like that. They wanted to see how long it would take for the skin to regrow. It took forty-two hours.”

“Tell me about the emotions you felt. Not the physical pain, though I’m sure it must have been immense. The emotions.”

“Fear. Violation. Anger.”

“Okay. Sergeant, look at me.” He met her gaze, all soft honesty. “I am very sorry that that happened to you and you have every right to feel those emotions. Do you agree that you have the right to feel that way?”

He thought it over for a moment, wanting to make sure he understood and meant it. “Yes.”

“Good. Now we can talk about the here and now. Our session is almost done. I suspect that Steve has been pacing a canyon somewhere while we’ve been talking and will be eagerly waiting for you. It’s also nearly lunchtime. Perhaps he’s cooking or making plans to order takeout. So, I think we can accept that, five minutes or so from now, that will be your here and now. Can you describe the emotions that relate to that?”

“Safety. Being cared for. Self-consciousness.”

“And you have every right to those emotions too, though I’d like to work on the self-consciousness with you. Do you agree that those emotions are valid?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now, which set of emotions would you like to keep?”

“The second set, of course.”

“Good,” Dr. Forester said with a smile. “All you have to do is imagine a box. It can be any shape or size you want, as long as it’s appropriate to fit those negative emotions in. Can you see it?” He imagined the box, plain cardboard, perfectly square, a good size to carry in his arms. He nodded when he had it. “Good. Open the box, place those negative emotions inside, and close the lid.” He did. It was incredibly weird and difficult to hold the image, but he managed it, nodding when he was ready. “Good. Tape the box shut. Nothing heavy-duty, nothing permanent. Those are valid emotions, after all, and you’re not getting rid of them, just setting them aside.” He imagined himself taping the box shut with one strip of tape at an angle across the top, then he nodded. “Perfect. Now, imagine that there is a bank of storage shelves at the back of your head. There are other boxes there, all different shapes and sizes, all unmarked. There are also a number of empty spaces. Pick an empty space and place your box there for safe-keeping. Maybe you never touch it again. Maybe you do. That doesn’t matter today, though, because in the here and now, you have an opportunity to feel safe and cared for and that is both something you want and deserve to feel.”

Dr. Forester quieted and he mentally turned his back on the box and walked away, instantly feeling lighter. He took an experimental breath and found that it came a little easier than before. He looked to Dr. Forester in something like amazement and watched that warm smile stretch across her features. “Thank you,” he said, meaning it with every inch of his being.

She blushed and nodded. “You’re welcome, Sergeant.” When he said no more, she tilted her head. “Would you like to see me again?”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad. If you agree, I think it would be good for us to meet again in three days. I’d like to see how your DBT practice is going and I suspect you don’t have many people around you who you can talk openly about the past with.”

He sighed, nodding stiffly. “You’re right. I have a nasty feeling that you’re just about always right.” Dr. Forester laughed at that and it gave him a nice warmth inside his chest. “Three days would be good. Same time?”

Dr. Forester made a note that must have been a reminder to put him in her calendar. “That would be perfect. Thank you for coming today, Sergeant, and for your open-mindedness. Talk therapy can be a very difficult hurdle and I appreciate the respect you showed me and your commitment to your recovery.”

More warmth and some surprise. He’d never been thanked so thoroughly, at least not in his memory, and had not expected it from her when she was the one helping him. He stood slowly and, as she did too, he extended his right hand for her to shake. She did. “Well, I couldn’t exactly help it. You’re a hell of a lot smarter than me, ma’am.”

She laughed and blushed again, then led him out the door and back towards the elevator. The room they had been in turned transparent once more. “Thank you, Sergeant. I will see you in a few days.”

Steve had indeed been pacing a canyon, but it was on Natalia’s floor while Natalia looked on with a withering expression. When he stepped off the elevator and gained their attention, Steve immediately rushed forward while Natalia rolled her eyes. “Buck. How did it go? Are you okay? Are you seeing her again?”

“I’m okay, Stevie.” He frowned and answered truthfully, “I’m…better, actually. A little better, anyway. I’m seeing her again in three days. She gave me some things to work on and she wants to see how they go.”

Steve lit up brighter than he’d seen since…well, since odd snippets of memories from 1943. Even Natalia softened and smiled, still watching from her perch at the counter. “That’s great!” Steve said. “I’ve been so worried…I’m glad she can help.”

“Me too.”

“So…what are you supposed to work on? Is it anything we can help with?”

He hadn’t expected that to be the next question. In fact, he’d expected to be asked what he’d divulged to Dr. Forester, not what she’d given him. He blinked, then recovered and moved towards the kitchen. “There’s this thing called mindfulness. It’s mostly just being aware of my surroundings…maybe it won’t be that hard since I do some of that reflexively anyway. But it’s more noticing sensory things and appreciating them. It’s apparently going to help me relax and enjoy life more and if I get good at it, I can use it to pull myself out of panic attacks.”

“Really? That’s amazing.”

He looked to Steve in surprise again and saw genuine enthusiasm there. “Yeah. When it’s in the moment like that, it’s called grounding. I guess there are different ways to do it I’m going to ask her about, but one is a countdown where you have to name five things you can see, four you can hear, three you can touch, two you can smell, and one you can taste. She said that the brain isn’t good at making up most senses, so if you acknowledge them all, you can ground yourself in reality.”

“That’s so cool,” Natalia said softly, her face impassive except for a slight frown and the turmoil in her eyes that she only let them see. “I bet it works for dissociative states too.”

“She mentioned dissociation, yeah.”

She nodded thoughtfully and with a jolt, he found himself wondering if that was what she was doing when she got cold and distant like she often did, especially after bad missions like Budapest. She was dissociating so she didn’t have to feel emotions. Steve was still focused on him and he didn’t know if she’d want Captain America to be aware of what he suspected, so he just moved to her as naturally as possible and kissed her hair, gripping her hand tight where Steve couldn’t see. She squeezed back. “So,” Natalia said. “We were just thinking of making grilled cheese sandwiches, but I have no cheese, so we need a new plan.”

“I think a couple of master strategists can handle a lack of cheese,” he said wryly. He earned a laugh from Steve for that and right then, feeling an ounce lighter from the therapy, having Natalia in his arms, and hearing Steve laugh, he almost smiled. Not quite, but almost.


End file.
